[yorkiegal]

HI everyone, I am new to this forum. My husband and I are planning to adopt my 17 year old cousins 18 month old little boy from the UK. He has been removed from her care by child porotective services and we are hoping to adopt him. My husband was born in the USA and I am british with a green card. Can anyone advise me how we go about starting the process. Currently the child is in foster care as my parents are too old to care for him. Do we have to adopt him in the UK before we can bring him into the US or is there a Visa we can apply for to bring him here while the adoption is processed? please help, any info or advice wouod be so welcome.
thanks, Yorkiegal

[sak9645]

Remember that international adoption involves two big issues -- adoption and immigration.

1. From the standpoint of adoption, your adoption must comply with the laws of the child's country of citizenship. Therefore, the adoption must be done according to U.K. law.

Before getting too far into the process, you will have to determine whether the U.K. will allow you to adopt the child, since you will be taking him out of the country. Some Western European countries require a year or more of residence in those countries during the adoption process, and it is not clear whether those requirements would be waived for a relative adoption or if one spouse grew up there.

You will also need to find out whether you qualify to adopt the child based on other factors, such as your age, length of marriage, medical history, history of any criminal proceeding, number of other children in your family, income, and so on. Even though you are a relative, you will still need to comply with U.K. laws regarding who may adopt a child.

If you find that you WILL be able to do an adoption, you will need a homestudy in the U.S., and all other documents required by the U.K. You will most likely be unable to remove the child from the U.K. until the adoption is finalized there, since very few countries allow you to bring the child to the U.S. under a decree of guardianship and complete the adoption here.

Be aware that both the U.K. and the U.S. have ratified the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption. Therefore, besides complying with U.K. law, itself, you will have to comply with the provisions of the Hague Convention, as interpreted by the U.K. and the U.S.

2. From the standpoint of immigration, you have to determine whether the child, if you are able to adopt him, will qualify for an adoption visa to enter the U.S. Remember that, just because your husband is a U.S. citizen, your child will not gain U.S. citizenship until AFTER adoption and entry into the U.S. Therefore, he must enter the country on a U.K. passport with a U.S. visa.

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act spells out who is eligible for an adoption visa. One of the most important considerations is the child's status as an "eligible orphan" under the Act.

Based on what you said in your email, the biological parents of your cousin's child no longer have parental rights, according to a court of law. If that is the case, and the child is a ward of the state, then he would qualify as an eligible orphan. He would NOT qualify if he was living with two parents, even though he is related to you.

If the child did not qualify for an adoption visa (IR-3 or IR-4), then you would not be able to bring him to the U.S. unless you lived abroad with him for two years.

Under the Act, you would also have to qualify as prospective parents. You would need the homestudy mentioned above, as well as approval of your petition to bring the child to the U.S. as an eligible orphan. Since both the U.K and the U.S. have ratified Hague Convention #33, on international adoption, you would have to follow the Hague process, which would include filing the I-800 petition.

Sharon