Guatemalan Adoption Nightmare is Lesson for All Prospective Parents

With the issues in Ethiopia and the mass-media campaign for the Vietnamese Bac Lieu 16, the article  Years pass, wait goes on [Cincinnati.com 7/23/11 by John Johnston] is very timely. This should be looked at as pre-adoption preparation for the worst-case scenario. It showcases a high-risk choice in country and agency and the decision-making that goes with it. What would you do if faced with this situation? What questions SHOULD you ask and when?

1. This couple decided to adopt from Guatemala 3 ½ years ago. Guatemala shut down shortly thereafter. “The couple was up against a deadline. Guatemala had previously announced it would halt international adoptions on Jan. 1, 2008. But pending adoptions such as the Collinses’ would be “grandfathered” – allowed to continue under existing rules – as long as their paperwork was properly filed before then”

Preparation: Research the issues surrounding the country that you are choosing. If there is any State Department notice ( found at http://adoption.state.gov/  ),then read it. Google media stories on the country. Flag all articles that sound “bad”, print them and make a list of all the bad things. If there are bad things in the past three years, then this should trigger some caution. Does it sound reasonable that an ethical adoption can occur based on the issues that you have uncovered? Have changes occurred to solve the issues? Is there a better choice in agency or better region to look at? What things could you do to lessen the risk of unethical behaviors in the country that you have chosen? If good answers are hard to come by, then completing the adoption will now have to take a back seat to ensuring that you are not adopting a trafficked child. Are there issues with how referrals are being given? The orphanages? The agencies? The facilitators in-country? Are there allegations of children being coerced or sold by biological families? Are family preservation services being offered to ALL people in the region or just some? How much money is your adoption agency spending in the area-is there a trade-off with number of referrals and quantity of money being given to the area? You will have to ask people currently in the process and those who recently-completed adoptions as well as the agency and weigh what seems to be more reasonable.

In the case of this story, the country had announced that it was halting adoptions. This was not just a caution. When a country announces that it is halting adoptions, strongly consider stopping your process. No one will be able to guarantee anything at that point. A child has not even been referred. There is no bond on either party’s part. The child very well may need food and medical care, but that is a child welfare issue, not an adoption issue. It is likely that the child’s permanency needs have never even been fully evaluated. Fully evaluated means asking the following questions: is there a way to have the child live with the birthparents or extended family? Can an NGO provide food and care to the child? Is there a foster village setting that the child can go to? Is there a domestic family that the child can go to?

At this point, is it about YOUR need to have a family or looking at it from the child’s point of view of getting care? The child still needs care, but what if you can’t provide permanency due to the foreign law? Does the world end or can you assist with getting an NGO to provide care or other needs? The lines blurs sometimes on wanting to parent a child that is in need and ensuring care for a child in need. When a country announces closure, really a line is drawn on what you can do for the child. Is it fair to drag a child that you don’t know, that doesn’t speak your language, that doesn’t have your culture through a multi-year process of coming to the US?

2. The wife has made 10 trips to Guatemala and the husband has made 8 trips.” they’ve spent $70,000 on agency fees, lawyers, travel expenses and the like”

Preparation: Before thinking about the budget of multiple trips and how that will work with your job and other children that you may be raising. STOP. You first need to think about what are the legalities of visiting the location of your referred child. What are the legalities of gathering information about your referred child during a country shutdown? Is this country planning on switching to the Hague process? If the country is switching to the Hague process, then the child will need to be offered to local families FIRST. This puts your referral into a gray area. Some people have been able to complete their adoption through grandfathered processes and others have not. You should NEVER believe an adoption agency who guarantees you that you will be grandfathered under the old process. There are no guarantees.

3. “Twice in the next two years, the Collinses said, they were told by their agency – which they eventually fired – that their adoption had been approved and was near completion. But additional problems kept cropping up. They had to pay $350 a month for Maggie to be housed in a foster home. They eventually learned that the home was run by the mother of the adoption agency’s attorney. They believe the attorney’s “error” was a means of prolonging the adoption process so her mother could collect more money”

Preparation: You need to get the details of the name(s) of the location(s) that your child is or has been at and who is in charge of the location. Ask about the details of the foreign law and if possible read the actual laws. Payment to foster homes is a serious red flag. Talk to others in the process who are using different agencies. Do the procedures that your agency tells you about seem to be the norm and do they appear to be legal?

4. “Last October, a court ruled that it needed an official declaration from Maggie’s birth mother that she wanted to relinquish her child. Officials said they had been unable to locate her for more than a year. The next month, Teresa Collins traveled to Guatemala and obtained a court document with the mother’s address. Collins paid a searcher $650 to find the woman. “She found her in one day, right at the address I had gotten off the court document.”Maggie’s mother was 33 and lived with her husband and four children in a rented room with a dirt floor and sheet-metal walls tied to bamboo poles. They shared a bathroom with three other families”

Preparation: Before hiring locals to track down birthfamilies, figure out if it is lawful and safe. If you find the birthfamily, morally and ethically you need to ask whether family preservation resources have been offered. In this case, a married couple and siblings were found. Is adopting a child from this circumstance really what you had in mind when you chose this country? Is it coercive to ask someone in the depth of poverty to sign over the rights to their child?Do they understand that their parental rights are really terminated or do they think that you are an education sponsor? Educational sponsorship is often a reason why impoverished families sign over their rights. If you do adopt from this circumstance, what will you do to keep the lines of communication open with your referred child’s family?

5. “The Collinses met Maggie’s mother on March 9. She told them that since January, social workers had paid several visits and “hounded her to take (Maggie) back, accused her of not loving Maggie, and told her husband he needed to be a man and take care of his family,” Teresa said.”

Preparation: Be sure that you really understand the context of what you are being told. In this case, was assistance being offered along with the social worker visits? How can you be sure? Is the family being offered money to say this by the locals you have hired?

6. “On July 14, a Guatemalan court ruled that the case should go to the National Council on Adoptions, the country’s new adoption authority. The Collinses will appeal in hopes of getting the case sent to the agency that processed cases under the old system.”

Preparation: Do not expect to be grandfathered under defunct authorities and a defunct process. That division may no longer exist and new treaties or laws on the books may make it impossible. The people in the division also may differ. New political parties may now be in charge. Lastly, if the Hague process or improved domestic or foster system will be put into place during the shutdown, is this referred child a good candidate for domestic adoption if the biological family cannot take back the child?If the child is a candidate (for example, a child that is young and healthy, characteristics that domestic adopters also would want), then is it morally right to appeal your case?

There are a lot of ethical and moral questions to weigh in addition to the legal and immigration qualification questions of the referred child’s case. Take the time to consider what you would do if caught in this kind of circumstance.

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