[swaabink]

Hi - I am new here and I have SO MANY questions...

Firstly a little on my background... I am married 6 yrs. DH and I are both Australian's living in New York and currently on visa's/advance parole for the green card. I am on an H1B and my husband on an O1 visa. We are actually pretty close to getting the green cards after about 5 long years... We have 2 beautiful boys biologically who are US citizens and we are thinking that we might like to adopt number 3. We are interested in the Ethiopia program.

Anyway - I am sure you can imagine where my questions will start...

Can we adopt as foreigners living here? - I have been told that H1B and L1 visa holders can adopt internationally but Green Card holders can only adopt domestically (which would also be an option).

I understand that no agency can be mentioned directly but if anyone has been through this or something of the likes or think they may know an attorney who could sort us out please PM me.

I know I have so many other questions but this is my initial HUGE hurdle I have to figure out if we can overcome.

Thanks and I look forward to gathering loads of useful information from the boards!!

[kretzklan]

Hello and welcome! I don't have exact answers to your questions, but if you've narrowed it down to Ethopia as a starting point - try posting on that specific board. I would also call some agencies that work with that country and just get info from them.
I have friends in similar situations - US citizens living abroad - and they've all been able to adopt (although the process was much longer)...but they were not applying for any type of citizenship where they were living. Good luck!

[ocracoke]

The issue that you will run into isn't the country you want to adopt from but bringing the child into the US. In order to bring an internationally adopted child into the US you must apply for a IR3 or IR4 visa. Both those applications require that at least one parent be a US citizen. That is my understanding but it is wise to check with immigration to make sure.

Samantha