[carlyincali]

I would like to view/print out an overview of the Guatemalan adoption process. I clicked on the link here on guatadopt but came up with nothing.

I remember seeing one before while doing research months ago. I wish I would have printed it out. My agency just has a general outline. I would like one more detailed.

Anyone know where I can look via internet to get one?

Thanks in advance,
Carla

[KevinK]

From my book (everything is correct except that now you get an appointment from the embassy rather than going in when you wish)..

Jumping Through Hoops

There are many great resources where one can find detailed information on the specifics of the adoption process in Guatemala. The website Guatemala Adoption Information and News Guatemala Adoption Information and News is a perfect place to start. In order to have the joyful part of this story, our adopting Isabel, flow more easily, at this point it is probably a good idea to give some basic description of what goes on when one is adopting a child from Guatemala. This will prevent having to invade the story too much for process details and explanations.

Basically there are two concurrent processes taking place, one for each country. The United States process is to validate that the child meets the official criteria to obtain orphan status and thus be permitted to immigrate. It is worth while to recall that the adoptive parents have already been approved to adopt a child. The orphan status is by and large pretty straightforward and logical with a few notable exceptions.

Currently, a child does not meet the orphan status if the child has two parents or the birthmother is married. In theory this makes sense when we consider the conventional dictionary definition of “orphan”. But what this ultimately means in practical terms is that if a couple has a child and decides that the best interest for that child is to be relinquished for adoption, they best divorce before the child is born and not list a father on the birth certificate. Otherwise, the child can not be adopted by Americans. No such requirement currently exists for children adopted domestically in the United States. As this is written there are bills before congress that would change the orphan status requirements and allow married couples to relinquish their children for intercountry adoption to the United States.

In the process of validating that the child meets the orphan status, a few steps take place. Your Guatemalan attorney first presents numerous documents to the Embassy in Guatemala City. At this point the Embassy issues an approval to conduct a DNA test.
Once the DNA results come back and the maternity is proved, the Embassy goes through all of the documents in detail. If they have questions or concerns, they can take further actions to investigate the case. One common thing is that they require that the birthmother be interviewed by Embassy staff. It is rumored these interviews had at times been downright degrading to the birthmother.

Ultimately the Embassy does one of two things. Generally everything is fine and a Visa Pre-Approval is issued for the child. Occasionally, the Embassy will issue what is called a NOID – notice of intent to deny and, subject to appeal, that child can not be adopted by a US citizen. With a Visa Pre-Approval issued, the child is promised a visa once the adoption is complete.

The act of making the child legally your son or daughter is conducted by the Guatemalan authorities. Much of this work is done through what is called the “notarial” legal system common through Latin-America. In these systems, the notaries are sort of a mix between a lawyer and a judge. The idea is to allow non-litigious legal matters to be handled outside of the government bureaucracy. The adoption process is that once the birthmother formally relinquishes the child, the adoption of the child by the adoptive parents must be approved by two government offices.

The first stage on the Guatemalan side is to go through Family Court. The role of Family Court is to ensure that the birthmother is voluntarily relinquishing the child, make her aware of her rights, and deem that the adoption is in the best interest of the child. Most of this work is done by a licensed social worker from the Family Court. During this stage, the social worker interviews the birthmother and the foster mother. Then the social worker writes a report, generally recommending the adoption. Lastly a judge must approve the case based on the social worker’s report. The predominant issue with Family Court is generally that some of the social workers are not conceptually supportive of intercountry adoption. Often trying to get the interviews set up and the report written can take quite some time. In their defense, these social workers are likely extremely busy as they also work on more traditional non-adoption cases like domestic violence and neglect. In addition, for some time one of the six Family Courts, court three, was notoriously anti-adoption and cases could linger there endlessly. To which court any given case is assigned is a matter of chance, although lawyers are permitted to once pull a case and have it again randomly assigned.

After clearing Family Court the case moves on to the office of the PGN, Procurador Generál del Nación. PGN is in many ways similar to our Justice Department. Really their job is simple. They just go through a variety of documents and make sure everything looks kosher. The case file is randomly assigned to a PGN lawyer who approves the case. Then it must be signed by the head of the PGN. But as is always the case with intercountry adoption, nothing is so simple. Often it can take many months to get this done. If the PGN lawyer opts to be difficult, they can issue a “previo” stating some document that is incorrect, missing, or otherwise not acceptable. Sometimes this can be something as irrelevant as a minor spelling error. Other times, they decide to create some new document requirement with no warning or legal authority. Earlier I mentioned the document we created with every fathomable version of our names and salutations. The purpose of this document is to reduce the odds of being previod because of your name appearing somewhere in some document in a way that you have not legally defined as being yourself.

The kick in the rear about being issued a previo is not only the delay, but also that sometimes the PGN attorney does not go through all the file, list all of the corrections needed, and then previo the case. Sometimes they find one correction and kick the case out. As a result, people can be kicked out of PGN multiple times. Because of the time it can take to obtain new documents and have them blessed kosher by all the necessary pundits, each round of previo can delay a case by weeks or months.

Once the case has been approved by PGN, the notaries must obtain the birthmother’s final approval of the adoption and then the official decree can be issued, making some soul in the United States a hell of a lot happier. From there, a new birth certificate is issued with the adoptive parents names. This must be obtained from the Civil Registry in the part of the country where the child was born which can at times be challenging in a country where sometimes they run out of the tax stamps needed to certify the document. With a new birth certificate in hand, the child can be taken to get a Guatemalan passport.

The United States and Guatemala processes by and large take place independent of one another. One major caveat is an agreement between the PGN and the Embassy that PGN will not release a case until the Embassy has issued the Visa Pre-Approval. The reason for this is to avoid the possibility that the adoption is legal but the child still can not enter the United States.

Once the child has a Guatemalan passport, all of the Guatemalan documents are furnished to the Embassy and within a few days a “Pink Slip” is issued. This Pink Slip says that you are pretty much done. All you need to do is have the child examined by an Embassy approved doctor and then head on down to the Embassy for a quick interview and then the next day you will have a Visa for the child and at last the child can come home!

Halleluiah!

Kevin
Guatadopt.com

[mommywannabee]

I have a flow chart from the embassy, but the file size exceed the limit on the forums. Would you like for me to e-mail a copy to you? I'll need your e-mail address.

The Department of State has good details too Intercountry Adoption Guatemala

[PetDragon]

Wow great explination thank you, I'm printing this out myself just to have it!

[DPline]

Here is the link for guatadopt also.

Guatadopt - Guatemala Adoption Resource Center

Click on adoption process, then the process