[singhp]

Five years ago, in a car accident, both of my friend's parents died. Her younger brother (who was 6 years old) and another younger sister (who was 8 years old) were injured but survived the accident. When she visited India after this accidence, she enrolled them to a boarding school. She has been taking care of both of them financially. She would like to adopt them and bring them up in US with her if possible. Here is her immigration situation.

Her husband has been in the US since 2000 and both of them are permanent residents since 2004. I know that for immigration through orphan adoption, one of them has to be citizen. Right now, they are going through legal adoption case at an Indian justice court and are quite confident that they will get the adoption approved by the Indian justice department. They are anticipating approval of our naturalization sometime in 2010. Here are the questions they have

1. What is the immigration process and are there major complications?
2. Should they apply for the adoption in the Indian justice court now or wait after they become citizens? Is there any advantage in waiting?
3. At present, the kids are 12 and 14 years old. What can she do now so that they would be eligible and not age-out, even there might be some unforeseen delay in the future?
4. What should they be doing to expedite and facilitate the case?

I appreciate your help and any guidance.