Messed-Up Mexican Adoption Story Misses Many Important Points

Long weekends tend to lend themselves to this kind of sad adoption story. Mexico’s unwieldy adoption process creates difficult wait: Uniting children, families far from easy [El Paso Times 9/4/11 by Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera]

The important points were missed, starting with the misleading title. So we will share those important points here.

The title implies that bureaucacy is the problem. That is what faux adoption reformers like to concentrate on. We like to get to the heart of the matter here. People on all sides caused these problems. Many of these problems can be fixed, but first the problems need to be recognized as such.

1. The child was never legally adopted. You have to skip to the end of the article to understand this. Under “Going Nowhere”, third paragraph: “It seemed Adilene hadn’t been legally cleared to be adopted, so the couple began calling DIF officials to ask whether her case had gone before the judge. It hadn’t.” The propaganda is put up front to stir you up emotionally so that you miss the VERY important point that this child NEVER had a legal adoption process. As we stated back in January , there are two things that have to happen: the legal process of adoption and the immigration.
2. The question of WHY there was no legal process is never even touched on in the article. The prospective parents did not investigate what the process was to begin with. Instead, they “first met with a DIF representative, the news was encouraging. An official told them Adilene could be with them within six weeks after they filed their paperwork. Two and a half months later, the couple submitted the initial paperwork and drove 15 hours to Juárez. When they arrived, the DIF official they had met with no longer worked there.  The new personnel seemed to know nothing about the case and sent them back empty-handed. ” They clearly did not ask the US embassy what was needed for immigration either. Officials who promise you something and then disappear should be the most basic sign for you to completely stop whatever process you have begun.
3. Mexico was in the process of enacting Hague regulations at the time. This is mentioned towards the end of the article but is really another critical point . This means that finding a child first and then adopting will NOT be allowed in the new process. Finding a domestic placement will come first.
4. Like we have seen in many other countries (and discussed in our Vietnam Bac Lieu 16 post), the couple decided to form a bond with the child anyway. The article begins with the girl discussing a “a small photo flipbook with pictures of a family in Kansas who traveled to Juárez a few years ago with plans of adopting her. In the photos, a woman smiles while holding a baby, a small boy opens a large Christmas present, and a blond, middle-aged man with glasses and a mustache sits in a hotel room with Adilene at his side. Two pictures show an empty room in the house of the Kansas family with yellow walls, a pink carpet, a white bedroom set and a bed with a pastel-colored cover. “This is my room,” Adilene said.” This concept is a very common thing discussed in adoptive parent forums and by agencies. The issue is when it is given to a child that is not legally yours. International adoption is always a dicey procedure. With all the red flags that this situation had already,this is the point where it started to involve the child. The first three points really are prospective adoptive parent nuisances. Once the child gets involved, many more precautions need to be taken so that the child isn’t being promised something that cannot be delivered, as was the case here.The couple did call off the adoption after three years.
5. Those that embrace the 147 million orphan marketing fallacy probably missed the point that the seventy kids in the orphanage showcased in this article mostly “are temporarily under the state’s custody. Only a few are candidates for adoption.” That is how it is in most orphanages worldwide. Most of the 147 million of at-risk kids live with their one surviving parent or extended family members, NOT in orphanages. Orphanages are community care, not adoption weigh stations (until foreign adoption agencies set up shop.)
6. Glossed over in the article is the separation of sibling groups. “And there is Adilene’s best friend, 13-year-old Iliana, whose younger brother was recently adopted. Iliana never had a chance to say goodbye.” “Adilene was moved to the Agua Viva shelter while her 1-year-old sister remained in a shelter for infants. Years later, she learned her sister had been adopted. She estimates her sister is now 6 years old.” How cruel! Two stories of separation AND no chance to say goodbye let alone be given contact information for their siblings!This is how the international adoption process is in many places. This needs to change.
7. Questionable parental rights termination is also discussed. “She is not unlike most of the children living in the city’s shelters who are there because they have suffered from abuse, negligence or abandonment. And as in those cases, officials of Mexico’s child custody services agency – the Family Integral Development office, or DIF – first tried to bring back Adilene and her immediate family back together. For some time Adilene would go to visitation sessions, where children play or watch movies in a room with a one-way mirror. On the other side, relatives are allowed to see their children and, like other kids living in shelters, Adilene knew her mother was there. One day, though, her name stopped appearing on the visitation list. She doesn’t know what happened with her mother, but she was told one day that she and her sister were being moved to the adoptions list. “
8. One good point is made about bureaucracy but we list it at the bottom because it is less important than the first seven in the adoption reform room. “Pérez said there is no national policy on adoptions in Mexico, which leaves each state to decide how to carry out the process. In the state of Chihuahua, where no formal law defines policies on adoption, Pérez said, the result is that each changing state and municipal administration decides how to deal with the process. Armendares Fontaine believes that the inconsistency in the process at the national level creates confusion at the individual branches of DIF. Finally, Armendares Fontaine believes it is necessary to improve the legal process through which a child is removed from a parent and placed on an adoption list, which is known to drag on and prevent the child from finding a new home. “

REFORM Puzzle Piece