Guatemala Pipeline Case Approved; New Pending Case Statistic Revealed UPDATED

This Associated Press story has been in hundreds of publications over the past few days. This adoption supposedly has occurred under the new laws. I am not sure that they realize that the statistic they report on pending cases is very different from the industry’s number.

See the story at Adopting Daniel: US couple tests new Guatemala law [WDTN 9/9/12 by Associated Press/ROMINA RUIZ-GOIRIENA and TRAVIS LOLLER]

Some excerpts: “The country’s quick-stop adoptions had made the nation of 14 million people the world’s second-largest source of babies to the U.S. after China. But the vibrant business came to a halt after an August 2007 raid on what was considered the country’s most reputable adoption agency, used by many Americans.

An investigation exposed a system of fake birth certificates and DNA samples, of mothers coerced into giving up children. Some claimed their children were kidnapped for sale. Adoptive parents paid up to $30,000 for a child in a country where the average person earns $5,000 a year.

Guatemalan birth parents poured into government- run centers looking for their missing children and ran ads in local papers.

Guatemalan doctors, lawyers, mothers and civil registrars were arrested and prosecuted, with some convictions for human trafficking and adoption fraud. The Solicitor General’s office was put under investigation by a U.N.-backed commission against impunity.

The Guatemalan government was forced to overhaul its adoption laws. The U.S. suspended all new adoptions from Guatemala.

By the beginning of 2008, a new council had to be established to clean up proceedings, including verifying the identity of birth mothers and their willingness to give up their children.

The old system, a mostly unsupervised network of private attorneys and notaries, was abolished.

Daniel was among 3,032 children caught in limbo.”

Here is where the number differs dramatically:

“Of the original 3,032 cases interrupted at the end of 2007, officials found 180 cases of children still waiting to be adopted.

[But JCICS says that there were 900 cases in the US alone! Hmmmm… This article says that only 6% of those 3,032 cases were possibly adoptable, which is on par with the CICIG commission’s 90%  of children being referred during this time were not abandoned or orphaned. See May 2011 CICIG post, May 2011 CCAI response and a summary of 2011 Guatemala news April 2012 post]

The first of these cases was Daniel’s.

Landrieu’s team worked with the U.S. Embassy and Guatemalan officials to broker an agreement that would allow certain cases to go forward if they met the criteria of both Guatemalan officials and the U.S. State Department.

She contacted many American families to see if they were still interested, discovering that many couples had spent tens of thousands of dollars, traveling up to 20 times to keep contact with the children.

Last December, the Hookers got a call saying they were one of 44 families whose cases were ready to move forward.

It would still be another eight months before they embarked on Aug. 21, hoping to become the first of those families eligible to collect their child under the new agreement.”

Another excerpt

“Landrieu discovered there was no list of people whose cases had been dropped due to Guatemala’s adoption ban.” [Again, JCICS/Semillas de Amor consortium said there were 900, but this article says 180 and Landrieu has no clue or it was obvious that 900 isn’t the number of children, but the number of PAPs being strung along.]

The Semillas de Amor/JCICS effort “Guatemala 900” can be seen at their website  here. A few descriptions of the founders are pasted below:

“”Along the ride he and his wife created has enjoyed watching several heroes of our world who everyone should get to know — Nancy Bailey of Semillas de Amor , Ellora DeCarlo of Futuro de los Ninos, and Tom DiFilipo, President of JCICS. All of them, along with all of his brave Guatemala 900 friends, constantly help to inspire Gary to advocate for the children of Guatemala who cannot speak for themselves”

And another one “Ellora and Gary are board members at Semillas de Amor and founded Futuro de los Ninos, a foundation that provides aid for children in Guatemala”

From my US Embassy Guatemala cable summary : “Semillas de AMOR “mothers” met “untimely and violent deaths””

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

 Wouldn’t it be nice if ANYONE in the US put this much effort into reuniting Anyeli with her Guatemalan mother?! She has been waiting a long time too!

 See all of our Guatemala posts here.

Update: Nearing Christmas, there has to be a slew of whiny Guatemala shutdown articles and APs claiming that they were never part of any corruption. Some will be featured in our FacePalm column. This one again gives false statistics: Shutdown of Guatemalan adoptions leaves families in limbo [Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/8/12 by Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times]

The article states “The Carrs are among the 4,000 Americans who found themselves stuck in limbo when Guatemala shut down its international adoption program in January 2008 amid mounting evidence of corruption and child trafficking. Officials here and in Washington promised at the time to process the cases expeditiously.” There were only ever 3,032 total cases of which a mere 6% qualified for international adoption. STOP LYING. I am sick and tired of it.

“Today, 150 children — including Geovany — are still waiting in orphanages and foster homes while the Guatemalan authorities weigh whether to approve their adoptions to U.S. families.” WHY are they waiting for US families and not being placed locally? I know the $$$$ answer to that, but this is beyond ridiculous at this point.

On the heels of this article, a nonc-oincidental DOS notice was published on December 11, 2012. See here and pasted below:

“Notice: Update on Intercountry Adoptions in Guatemala

The following is an update on issues and developments in Guatemalan adoptions.  We also take this opportunity to remind adopting parents and others that the U.S. government is not a party to these pending adoption cases and cannot represent the interests of parties in private legal matters.  Thus, we may not be informed of or be entitled to receive information pertaining to proceedings in specific cases.

Joint USCIS-State Delegation to Guatemala October 23-25

From October 23-25, a joint USCIS-Department of State delegation traveled to Guatemala to meet with government officials from the Ministerio Publico (MP), the Procuraduría General de la Nación (PGN), the Guatemalan National Council on Adoption (CNA),and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  In case-by-case discussions of the “Universal List” of all known pending grandfathered adoptions of Guatemalan children by U.S. citizen prospective adoptive parents, the visiting delegation encouraged Guatemalan officials to quicken resolution of all these cases in the best interests of the children, and to complete those cases while the PGN still has additional investigators funded through the end of 2012.

During these discussions, Guatemalan authorities reiterated that some of the notario cases may not be able to proceed under the notario process when the investigation reveals that the case does not fall within the parameters of the relevant law.  However, if a judge makes a finding of adoptability for the child, such a case may be considered eligible under the CNA’s acuerdo process.  USCIS and the Department of State continue to work closely with Guatemalan authorities to bring pending cases to resolution.

CNA Acuerdo Update

Since January 2012, the CNA has referred17 cases to the U.S. Embassy for final adoption processing as acuerdo cases, and has identified others that it considered eligible to move through the acuerdo process.

Note:  Only the CNA can determine whether cases are eligible under the CNA Acuerdo.  The Office of Children’s Issues, USCIS, and the U.S. Embassy, if informed in a specific case, can only comment on whether or not the CNA has initiated the case, and if so, what documents the CNA requires.  The Office of Children’s Issues can also provide general information on the CNA process.

Other News

The PGN and CNA have informed the U.S. Embassy of approximately 85 children who are no longer available for adoption because the child was either reunited with the biological family or placed in domestic adoption.  Upon receiving written confirmation of this from the Guatemalan government, USCIS informed the U.S. families associated with those cases.

Visas statistics

From May 1, 2012, until today, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala has issued five IR-3 adoption visas.  These visa statistics represent only the cases which have completed all processing steps with Guatemalan authorities, USCIS Guatemala, and the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy.  ”

Of course these numbers do not add up. Is that 85 of the 180 cases from 2007 or 85 of the supposed 150 cases cited in the article? …who knows? It is just lie after lie with these people. Spending all of this time and effort and money and whiny media articles for political and $ purposes.  Landrieu and the rest of the lot…you make me sick.

Update 2: “UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake welcomes steps towards greater focus on child protection systems.

While challenges remain, Guatemala has taken steps towards improving child protection systems, establishing more specialized Children’s Courts, pledging to resolve ‘transition adoption’ cases, preventing children ending up in institutions, supporting families to keep their children and punishing crimes against children.

During a visit by Executive Director Anthony Lake last week, UNICEF in turn pledged to offer its support to the implementation of these measures.

Such progress will be especially important for children like those in the beds and cribs of Hogar Seguro, one of the largest institutions for children in Latin America. In total 5,800 children still reside in institutions such as this, with little or no access to their families.

Hogar Seguro houses children from 18 years old down to tiny premature babies. Some babies just days old, some reaching out from their cribs and bassinettes, some quietly, others not so quietly, desperate to be held. One toddler, Isios, caught UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake’s eye, crying out as Lake walked by before smiling when the Executive Director stopped and picked him up.

“No matter how good and caring the institution – and this is a good one, the workers here are doing wonderful work – nothing can replace the love of a family,” said the Executive Director. Work has already started at Hogar Seguro to create smaller homes run by carers. Domestic adoption and foster care are on the increase in Guatemala. But increased efforts are needed to support families so that children can thrive at home.

Mr. Lake expressed particular concern for another group of children who had essentially become bureaucratic victims of the 2008 moratorium on inter-country adoption. When a country takes steps to correct violations in child protection systems, the best interests of children must be paramount. That means a roadmap, with clear targets, must be established and enacted – something that had unfortunately been lacking in Guatemala with the remaining intercountry adoption cases, leaving some 100 children in an administrative limbo.

During the UNICEF Executive Director’s visit last week, the Solicitor General, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Adoption Council announced that a working group had been established to resolve these cases. A goal has been set of three months for the investigation of outstanding cases and another two months for finalisation. This was a critical step, one which the UNICEF Executive Director welcomed while urging that immediate action follow.

Broader protection efforts are also being made. Supreme Court Justices Gabriel Gomez and Gustavo Mendizabal reassured the Executive Director that justice for children would be a priority through the setting up more of specialized Children’s Courts to deal with crimes against children. The Alba Kenneth Alert System, an initiative legislated by the government to address child abduction and disappearance, has also been established.

President Otto Pérez Molina has pledged to provide more government resources to investigate outstanding transition cases and Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz assured the Executive Director of her commitment to child protection in Guatemala.

For its part, UNICEF’s Executive Director committed the organization to working with the Guatemalan government to accelerate progress on child protection and combatting violence against children.

Around the world UNICEF focuses on turning commitments to protect the rights of children into reality, so that children like Isios have more reason to smile.

The Executive Director was accompanied by Chief Child Protection Officer Susan Bissell, and Spokesperson Sarah Crowe.”

In Guatemala, UNICEF Executive Director welcomes steps towards greater focus on child protection systems

[The Guatemala Times 4/3/13]

Update 3: Two more pipeline cases go through . First one has more spin that this adoption was completed years ago. The Guatemalan government just approved it.

“A Northern Virginia family is back together under one roof after the Guatemalan government finally approved the adoption of a 5-year-old boy to the U.S.

Peggy and Joe Femenella, of Vienna, adopted their son, Andrew, from his native country five years ago when he was 4 months old.

The adoption happened just before Guatemala banned adoptions to the U.S. Andrew’s case got caught in the red tape and he couldn’t come America.

“Once we started [the adoption process], he was our son,” Peggy Femenella said. “So you do anything you can for your family.”

During the legal fight, Joe quit his job and moved to Guatemala to raise Andrew there. Peggy stayed behind to provide financial support.

The case eventually attracted the personal involvement of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who is the co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on adoption. “[The Guatemalan] government failed and our government failed to really identify those transition cases,” said Landrieu, who added that 112 American families still had cases in limbo as a result of the Guatemala adoption ban, down from 900 five years ago.

On Monday, word came that the Guatemalan government had cleared Andrew to join his American family, and a welcoming party, including Sen. Landrieu, met the little boy at the airport Friday.

“Long, long time,” said Joe Femenella of his family’s five-year wait, ” but I wouldn’t do anything different. “

Virginia Family Reunited After Guatemala Adoption Delay

[NBC Washington 4/13/13 by Erika Gonzalez]

“A U.S. couple caught up in the corruption and eventual shutdown of the Guatemala adoption program finally adopts son after more than five years of working to complete the process, reports People Magazine on March 29. Jen and Andrew DeTolve persevered through bureaucracy, politics and expensive trips back and forth to Guatemala to bring home the son they first met in September 2007.

Like many families who adopted from Guatemala, the DeTolves made a visit to the country to meet the infant boy that they’d been matched with shortly after seeing his photograph for the first time. It was the fall of 2007 and the five days they spent with their would-be son, Byron, led them to fall in love. Such visits were common for hopeful adoptive parents in the Guatemala adoption program. While parents were not allowed to bring the child home to the U.S. until the adoption was finalized, they were allowed to visit the child in Guatemala. For the DeTolves, the bonding that occurred during their five day visit is what helped them to persevere during the subsequent five years.

Four months after meeting Byron, the Guatemala adoption program was shutdown. The program was increasingly riddled with accusations of fraud and corruption, which eventually led to its demise. And then the worst happened: the DeTolves received news that young Byron’s foster mom had been arrested for child trafficking. Byron was taken into protective custody and neither the DeTolves nor their adoption agency were unable to determine his whereabouts. They were devastated.

“Here I am, a father to this little boy, and he’s in trouble, and I couldn’t do anything to help him,” says Andy in the People Magazine article. “I wanted to explode.”

What followed was several years of waiting and searching. While some families caught up in similar situations walked away from their dreams of completing a Guatemala adoption, the DeTolves did not. They’d bonded with the young boy and knew in their hearts that he was their son.

Over a year later the DeTolves located Byron in a Guatemalan orphanage. Because they’d begun the process to adoption the young boy before the shutdown occurred, they were allowed to complete the adoption. They were overjoyed when it was over and their son was home forever. While the story ends happily, the process to complete the adoption was neither easy nor cheap. The DeTolves say they “spent more than $80,000 for legal fees and 16 Guatemala trips.”

Prior to the program closure, the Guatemala adoption program was a popular one for U.S. families. According to the U.S. Department of State, 29,731 Guatemala adoptions were completed between 1999 and 2011.”

Couple spends over five years and $80k to complete Guatemala adoption

[Examiner 3/29/13 by Shawna O’Reilly]

Update 4: DOS issues a new notice after Ambassador Jacobs visited in early May 2013. The number of cases pending again has changed…now lower than any number discussed before.

See the notice here and pasted below:

“Update on Intercountry Adoptions in Guatemala

Joint USCIS-State Delegation to Guatemala

During the week of May 13, 2013, Special Advisor for Children’s Issues Ambassador Susan Jacobs traveled with USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas to Guatemala for meetings with Guatemalan government officials of agencies directly involved in adoptions, including the Procuraduría General de la Nación (PGN) and the Guatemalan National Council on Adoption (CNA).  They also met with members of the Supreme Court, the Ministerio Publico (MP), the Ministry of Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).  Their visit provided an important opportunity to meet recently-appointed Guatemalan officials and emphasize that the timely and transparent resolution of all the remaining pending transition adoption cases in the best interests of the children remains a top priority for the United States.

The meetings were also an opportunity to review the progress on completion of these remaining cases following recent administrative and personnel changes in the Government of Guatemala.
In the last several months, the Guatemalan government has accelerated its completion of cases, and fewer than 100 pending transition adoption cases are awaiting resolution as of the date of this notice.  Twenty-nine cases have moved to CNA’s Acuerdo process, and nine cases have concluded with the immigration of the adopted children to the United States with their U.S. citizen parent(s).  Guatemala also completed an additional four cases under the notarial process and these children have joined their families in the United States.  Some cases have concluded with the child’s reunification with a biological family member in Guatemala. 

Officials at the PGN, which has the authority to complete the investigations in the pending cases, report having 52 cases in various stages of investigation.  The PGN has received renewed funding for its investigators, allowing them to continue their work with a goal of completing these investigations within two months.  Once it has completed an investigation, PGN will request a hearing with a Guatemalan court judge for a determination of the child’s adoptability , or reunification with biological or extended family.  It is also possible, though not likely, that the judge will order the case to conclude via the notarial process.  According to the Guatemalan Supreme Court, there currently are no backlogs at the courts in Guatemala City, so that legal process should proceed without delays.  The cases with court decrees of adoptability will go to the CNA for evaluation of their eligibility for completion of the adoptions through the Acuerdo process.

The USCIS and Consular staff of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City are in constant communication with the Guatemalan officials responsible for adoption procedures.  U.S. Embassy staff monitor and promote Guatemalan progress in resolving the remaining cases by attending the semi-weekly meetings of the technical group where these authorities work through the cases.  Prospective adoptive parents may contact USCIS directly at Guatemala.adoptions@dhs.gov, and the Immigrant Visa Unit of the Consular Section directly at AdoptGuatemala@state.gov, in order to inquire about the status of individual adoption cases.”

So the 85 cases of children reunified or placed locally that we discussed in our first update likely were out of the 180 number.

Update 5/September 26, 2013

Numbers of pending Guatemala cases are still in disagreement

“Today in Guatemala, 31 children are waiting for their government to decide who their families should be.

Each of those children has a family waiting in the United States, trying to finalize an adoption. But authorities have been unable to determine whether the children were voluntarily surrendered by their biological parents, or unlawfully taken by agents of what was a corrupt and unregulated system.

For the children involved, and the people who want to be their parents, it’s a situation fraught with pain: Children who don’t know who to call family. Parents — adoptive or biological — who want nothing more than to bring them home.

Most of these cases began to draw attention in 2008. The United States and Guatemala had just joined 68 other countries around the world in agreeing to regulate adoptions — requiring basic standards of documentation like DNA tests to verify that the person who surrenders a child for adoption is, in fact, a biological parent.

These rules — called the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption — replaced a system in which adoption had become a profits-based business, with unscrupulous private attorneys buying and selling children whose biological parents still wanted them. In the years just before the Hague Convention took effect, Guatemala became a particular focus of such criminal activities.

Between 2002 and 2007, there was a 200 percent increase in adoptions from Guatemala to the United States. In 2008, after the U.S. signed the Hague Convention, there were approximately 3,000 Guatemalan children whose adoptions by Americans were in process. For both children and prospective adoptive parents, the wait has been excruciating.

The U.S. and Guatemala agreed that these cases could proceed, but would need to meet Hague standards. In some instances, the children waiting for homes had no documentation or birth certificates; others had been surrendered by attorneys who were later indicted for corruption. This made it difficult for case workers to verify identities and find the biological parents to ensure that he/she had been willingly surrendered.

By 2011, the number of children awaiting homes had been reduced to 714, and by March 2013 the number of cases remaining for investigation was about 100. In April, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake met with Guatemala’s president, Attorney-General, Solicitor-General and Supreme Court justices. He urged them to prioritize the 100 children awaiting permanent homes, and they agreed to do so. They convened a working group to resolve the remaining cases by September, 2013.

And there has been progress. At this writing, the government has reduced the number of outstanding cases to eight, which could mean a delay of about two months from the timeline that was committed to during Mr. Lake’s visit.

Guatemalan judges have completed 69 cases (49 for inter-country adoption and 20 for reunification). For those for whom inter-country adoption was recommended, eight children have already moved to the U.S., while the rest are being processed by Guatemalan and U.S. authorities to finalize their departure. The 20 children who were recommended for reunification with their birth families are being closely monitored by a local NGO to ensure a healthy and supportive transition, in line with Hague guidelines for reunification.

We commend the government of Guatemala for exposing an unregulated and corrupt system, and for committing to broader reforms. Likewise, we are grateful to organizations in Guatemala and the U.S. for their sustained and effective advocacy on behalf of the children caught in this transition.

But as these cases come to a close, we must not forget the Guatemalan parents who’ve been victimized, nor the Americans who have been lovingly parenting the children they are seeking to legally adopt. We must also note the costs to children whose young lives have been spent in institutional care. Though there are some good facilities that provide short-term homes for children, UNICEF strongly discourages the institutionalization of children. When a child cannot be raised by his/her biological family or relatives, an adoptive family is the very best alternative, either domestically or internationally.

It is for these children, who must be our first priority, that we urge Guatemala to resolve these remaining cases as soon as possible.”

Guatemala’s Children Have Been Waiting Too Long

[Huffington Post 9/20/13 by Carol M. Stern]

“Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States says a task force recently created in his country will help expedite the pending adoptions of 115 Guatemalan babies. [It is 49 children who will be internationally adopted and an additional 31 that still need to be decided. That does not equal 115.]

Ambassador Julio Ligorria says in a letter that the goal is to complete the pending adoptions by U.S. couples by year’s end.

Ligorria says in a letter sent Wednesday to lawmakers and U.S. adoption lobbyists that the group led by Vice President Roxana Baldetti began working earlier this month.

Guatemala was once a top source of adopted children for U.S. couples, with more than 4,000 babies adopted each year. The government suspended adoptions by foreigners in 2007 following allegations of fraud and baby theft.

The U.N.-created International Commission Against Impunity studied 3,000 adoptions and found falsified paperwork and fake birth certificates in several cases.”

Guatemala to complete all US adoptions this year

[KTVL 9/26/13 by Associated Press]

Update 6: “A Minnesota air stewardess has finally welcomed home her three adopted daughters seven years after she first met the girls in a Guatemalan orphanage.

Suann Hibbs met her daughters in 2008, but when the Guatemalan government cut back on foreign adoptions the family were left in legal limbo.

It took seven years, 30 trips abroad and a lot of help from Senator Amy Klobuchar before officials finally allowed Ms Hibbs to take the three sisters home last week.

Air stewardess finally brings home three adopted daughters from Guatemala SEVEN YEARS after she met them in orphanage[Daily Mail 4/22/14 by Jessica Jerrat]