Adoptive families wait for children in Congo UPDATED

“Last year a Congolese court ruled that Larner and her husband are the legal parents of Rosalie, 6, and twins Malachi and Dominic, 2. In the fall, as the Larners prepared to go to the Congo to get their children home, the Congolese government stopped issuing exit visas for adopted children.

Since then, the Larners and other adoptive families have been waiting for the OK to bring their children home. They have no idea when or if this will happen.

“When you’re in the spot where we are, you never know what to do,” Larner said. “Can I go on forever like this? There will be one day when you have to make a decision. They’re more than just kids in pictures. You have to ask yourself, would you walk away? We don’t know what to do.”

The Congo is not the first international adoption program to hit a snag; in fact, it represents the latest twist in international adoption’s up-and-down history.

High-profile adoptions like those by Madonna and Angelina Jolie brought attention to international adoption. More recently, negative stories, such as the one about a Russian boy being sent back to his home country alone, have surfaced.

The number of international adoptions has dropped dramatically as large programs like Vietnam, Guatemala and Russia shut down. In 2004, nearly 23,000 children were adopted from abroad by U.S. families. Last year fewer than 8,000 were adopted.”

“A group of adoptive parents formed in 2008 has made repeated calls for reform. Parents for Ethical Adoptive Reform, or PEAR, fears it’s too easy for adoption agencies to prey on prospective parents’ desires to have a family and sometimes these parents aren’t asked tough questions.

Some agencies may “manufacture” orphans by telling biological families their youngsters are heading to America for education, said Karen Moline, a PEAR board member.

In some cases, impoverished birth parents relinquish a child for what they think will be a temporary stay in an orphanage. Agencies then falsify paperwork, presenting the children as true orphans to eager, naive prospective parents, Moline said.

Questions have swirled about the ethics of Congolese adoptions from the start, due to the political instability in that country, said Moline, who adopted a child from Vietnam.

“I really feel terrible for these families because they went into this with the best of intentions, and they are getting a very painful wakeup call about the reality of corruption in international adoption,” Moline said.

Michele Jackson, founder and executive director of MLJ Adoptions, hopes an answer will come soon to allow families like the Larners to complete their international adoptions. Her Indianapolis-based agency was the first to offer Congolese adoptions and has matched American families with more than 200 Congolese children. About 90 of the children placed through her agency live in Central Indiana.

Last year, 311 children from the Congo joined new families in the United States, according to the State Department.

From the start, Jackson said she has made it clear to interested families that she considers the Democratic Republic of Congo a “high risk” program.”

Adoptive families wait for children in Congo[Indy Star 5/14/14 by Shari Rudavasky]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update:“The United States Senate approved a bipartisan amendment offered by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that would urge the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to allow children who have been legally adopted by American citizens to leave the DRC for the United States. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) co-sponsored the amendment to the 2015 U.S. Senate Budget Resolution, which passed this morning.

On September 25, 2013, the DRC government suspended the issuance of exit permits, which has prohibited legally adopted children from departing the DRC with their adoptive parents.  The McConnell-Klobuchar amendment puts the Senate on record as supporting the promotion of “the return of children who have been legally adopted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and are only a plane ride away from becoming United States citizens to their American citizen parents residing in the United States.”

“Many Kentucky families have been affected by the unfortunate stalemate of adoptions in the Congo,” Senator McConnell said. “I am pleased the Senate has expressed its support for the children who have been legally adopted by American citizens, and I thank my colleagues – particularly Senator Klobuchar – for their commitment to resolving this issue.”

According to the U.S. Department of State, as of January 2015, 963 children who have been or are in the process of being adopted by American citizens have been affected by the DRC government’s exit permit suspension.  About 230 of these children have been issued U.S. visas and are literally one step away from becoming U.S. citizens.  More than 20 Kentucky families have been affected by the current adoption stalemate.

Bipartisan cosponsors to the McConnell-Klobuchar amendment are: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Senator Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), Senator Al Franken (D-MN), Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senator Angus King (I-ME), Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Senator Dan Coats (R-IN), Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), Senator John Boozman (R-AR), Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).”

McConnell Amendment to Help Adoptive Families Passes Senate[Mitch Mcconnell website 3/27/15]

“The Democratic Republic of Congo suspended the issuance of exit letters for intercountry adoptions in 2013, leaving hundreds of Congolese children who have been legally adopted by U.S. citizens stuck in the country and forcing their adoptive families to continually renew the children’s immigrant visas as they wait to be united 

Current law requires immigrant visas to be renewed every six months, which costs families $325 each time; The Adoptive Family Relief Act would waive the fee for families whose adoptive children are unable to immigrate in a timely manner due to exceptional circumstances and refund any visa renewal fees that they have already paid.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has cosponsored a bill to waive visa renewal fees for adoptions from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) suspended the issuance of exit letters for intercountry adoptions in 2013, leaving hundreds of Congolese children who have been legally adopted by U.S. citizens stuck in the country and forcing their adoptive families to continually renew the children’s immigrant visas as they wait to be united. Current law requires immigrant visas to be renewed every six months, which costs families $325 each time. The Adoptive Family Relief Act would waive the fee for families whose adoptive children are unable to immigrate in a timely manner due to exceptional circumstances and would refund any visa renewal fees that they have already paid.

“For the hundreds of families across the country who are waiting to be united with their adoptive children from the Congo, the uncertainty and longing caused by this stalemate is a burden they carry with them every day,” Klobuchar said. “This bill would ensure they no longer have to face an additional financial burden by waiving visa renewal fees for families whose adoptive children’s immigration is being held up by exceptional circumstances.”

In March, Klobuchar’s amendment urging the DRC to allow children who have been legally adopted by American citizens to leave the DRC for the United States passed the Senate. Last fall, Klobuchar led a letter with a bipartisan group of 181 lawmakers to urge the DRC to act on adoption reform and resume intercountry adoptions. She joined lawmakers last year in sending a letter offering to help support the DRC’s efforts to follow up on the well-being of Congolese children adopted by U.S. citizens. She also signed a letter urging President Obama to personally intercede with Congolese President Joseph Kabila on behalf of U.S. families whose children have been trapped in the DRC due to the exit letter suspension.

Klobuchar, who was recently named a co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, is a strong advocate for adoptive families and children. She has worked closely with adoptive Minnesota families to help them bring their children home from countries such as Guatemala, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Russia. Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, her office helped Minnesota families who had pending Haitian adoptions bring their children home.

Klobuchar has introduced The Supporting Adoptive Families Act to help provide pre- and post- adoption support services, including mental health treatment, to help adoptive families stay strong. In addition, Klobuchar authored the International Adoption Simplification Act to help siblings stay together during an international adoption and protect adoptees from unsafe immunizations in foreign countries. The bill was signed into law on November 30, 2010.”

KLOBUCHAR SUPPORTS BILL TO WAIVE VISA RENEWAL FEES FOR ADOPTIONS FROM DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO[Klobuchar website 5/12/15]

Update 2:”Congo plans to allow 71 children whose adoptions were interrupted by a 2013 suspension to join families in the U.S. and four other countries next week, an official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

In December 2013, Congo announced a suspension on foreign adoptions, citing reports that children had been mistreated or abandoned by their adoptive families while others had been “sold to homosexuals.”

The move prompted a pressure campaign from hundreds of frustrated American families who were in the process of arranging adoptions from Congo. As of last year, 148 Congolese children had been legally adopted by U.S. families and given U.S. visas but were waiting for exit permits to leave the country, according to a letter to President Barack Obama signed by 167 members of Congress. More than 900 U.S. families seeking to adopt from Congo were “stuck in limbo” because of the suspension, according to the letter, which was timed to coincide with Congo President Joseph Kabila’s visit to the U.S. last August for a U.S.-Africa summit.

Officials in Congo are reviewing about 1,000 individual cases of children whose adoptions were already in progress when the suspension was announced, Albert Paka, a judicial adviser at the interior ministry, said on Saturday.

“The interior ministry is going to authorize as soon as Monday the departure of 71 children adopted in five different countries,” Paka said.

He said the U.S. and Belgium were among the five countries but did not specify the others.

Paka said the suspension on new adoptions would remain in place.

When the suspension was announced, Italy’s foreign ministry said that it had summoned Congo’s ambassador to express dismay that some two dozen Italian families, who were due to return to Italy with their newly adopted children, were thwarted from leaving with them due to the unexpected suspension of foreign adoptions.

According to State Department figures, 311 children from Congo were adopted by Americans in the 2013 fiscal year — the fifth-highest number of adoptions from a foreign country.”

Congo to allow completion of some foreign adoptions despite 2013 ban[US News 5/30/15 by  SALEH MWANAMILONGO]

US DOS issues an alert on June 2,2015. It can be found here:

“The Department of State Strongly Recommends Against Adopting from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC):