Adoption ordeal nears conclusion
Monday, Feb 04, 2008 – 12:09 AM
By MELODIE N. MARTIN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Jim Cameron and Tracy Sumner have spent nearly three months and 8,400 miles apart waiting for U.S. government permission to bring their adopted baby home. …
But Friday, the Richmond couple finally secured a visa for 6-month-old Ian. Sumner, who has remained in Vietnam, plans to arrive today with the child in Richmond, where they will rejoin her husband at their Fan District home.
Lynda S. Zengerle, a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, has represented the couple and five other families.
She said the situation resulted because the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security couldn’t agree on how to deal with the adoption petitions filed on behalf of Vietnamese orphans. …
…on Nov. 9, they received a Notice of Intent to Deny from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of Homeland Security, for Ian’s visa. It asserted that he did not meet the definition of an orphan.
Zengerle said that the reasons cited were unsubstantiated, especially because both birthparents relinquished Ian at the orphanage themselves and were twice interviewed and signed affidavits giving the child up for adoption. …
Cameron and Sumner submitted a written appeal in late December, but they didn’t receive word that it was approved until Thursday. They and other couples who were successful in their appeals then waited for the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam to approve their adoption petitions and issue visas.
At least 11 babies remain in Vietnam while their families wait for an answer, Cameron said. …
“We’re doing everything in our power to complete these cases as quickly as possible,” said Cy Ferenchak, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department.
“We know that the review period is difficult for the families, but the government has the responsibility to ensure that any irregularities are validated before we complete the petition on the visa application.”
11 Responses
I support the US Gov’t’s new I600 policy and hope it helps to stop any think unethical going on, but when you read statements like “both birthparents relinquished Ian at the orphanage themselves and were twice interviewed and signed affidavits giving the child up for adoption” it does make me wonder what the truth is and what the gov’t is really doing.
I am just making an educated guess, and I am not in any way involved with this case, but, I suspect the problem with this baby’s visa stems from the fact that he had *two* parents. The article states, “because both birthparents relinquished Ian at the orphanage themselves” – I am trying to remember where I read the definition of orphan that excluded a child with two parents, or married parents. I will try to find it…
Gretchen
I found the relevant definition of orphan that excludes a child with two parents (this is from the US Department of State website, referencing the Immigration Code (a codebook that rivals the IRS codebook in complexity, I might add):
WHAT IS AN ORPHAN?
If an adopted child has not resided with and been in the legal custody of the adopting parent for at least two years (or if the child has not yet even been adopted) the child must qualify as an orphan under section 101(b)(1)(F) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act in order to apply for an immigrant visa. The main requirements of this section are as follows:
The child must be under the age of 16* at the time an I-600 Petition is filed with the USCIS or a consular officer on his or her behalf;
The child meets the U.S. immigration law definition of “orphan†because:
The child has no parents due to the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation from or loss of both parents; or
The sole or surviving parent is incapable of providing proper care and has, in writing, irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption**;
Gretchen,
Thank you for that information!
Thanks for that information! I too remember reading somewhere that a child with two parents wasn’t an orphan for visa purposes.
But, if that’s how it’s meant to be, how did these parents get that NOID overturned? Because the child did have two parents.
Does that orphan definition mean that no child with two parents, both of whom knowingly and voluntarily relinquish the child for int’l adoption, can be adopted?
I don’t expect anyone to know the answers, but it does make me wonder.
It appears that BOTH parents signed relinquishment papers. Therefore, the child (on paper) does not have parents, therefore is an orphan.
Right, it is the fact that BOTH parents signed relinquishment papers that I am betting is the problem. The code does not allow for that provision. One parent has to die, abandon, desert or separate from the child, and thereafter the remaining parent can relinquish.
Again, I am NOT involved in this case, but, I am betting that, in order to get the NOID overturned, they had to make a case that the act of signing the child away WAS an act of abandonment or desertion. In my experience, the Immigration Code is often interrpretted extremely literally, with sometimes draconian results. That’s why I suspect that is what the problem was in the case, but, again, I’m not involved, and have no actual knowledge, just making an educated guess.
I know of a family that had both parents at the G&R and their daughter is now over a year old. I have heard of many children that are relinguished because they cannot afford another child. If both parents knowingly gave up the child, then what is the issue? Once again, it seems like the US is telling people what is best for them.
I don’t doubt that there has been more than one occasion where both birth parents have been at the G&R. However, I would guess that in those cases, the child’s paperwork says that one parent abandoned, and the remaining parent relinquished.
You are asking for logic from an entity that has, for decades (and regardless of the fact that it has been reorganized into the Department of Homeland Security) made an illogical bureaucratic nightmare of the immigration process. They make decisions about people’s lives and futures EVERY DAY. I remember reading one case in law school that involved a man who was being sent back to South America on a technicality of interpretation of the Immigration Code – and the man was facing a death squad for having participated in some kind of freedom movement there. THE INS SENT HIM BACK ANYWAY, because he didn’t meet the strict interpretation of a party seeking political amnesty. I was horrified by the outcome of that case and it haunts me to this day – because, essentially, the US government handed a man over to be killed. I sat in class that day and said that there was blood on the hands of the INS, and I stand by that statement.
The decisions being made for these babies are important decisions – but, don’t doubt that the Immigration service makes far graver decisions daily.
Not trying to be argumentative, but how does anyone know that those “parents” that show up to relinquish are REALLY the biological parent? They may be in country facilitators or workers paid by the agency or country liaison? Did anyone do a DNA test on them? Was there any money exchanged to have the “parents” relinquish the rights? This whole story sounds a bit strange. But then International Adoption is dealing in murkey grey areas.
When there are 2 parents then the abandonment can not have any “conditions”. If both parents signed statements for the child to be placed for international adoption then it would become an abandonement with conditions and that child would not qualify as an orphan. Maybe that was the problem. Ethicanet has a breakdown of the 6 ways a child with 2 parents would qualify as an orphan. You can read it here:
http://www.ethicanet.org/item.php?recordid=orphanbyanyname&pagestyle=default
Penny