Good news in foreign adoption

Art Buchwald

Toledo Blade

Paris—Although the immigration law which Congress passed did not make it much easier for people to get into the United States, one provision was passed that was welcomed by American citizens living abroad as well as in the United States.

The new bill provides that foreign children adopted by Americans will be allowed to migrate to the United States without having to wait for a quota number.

For the last year, if an American couple adopted a child from a country whose United States immigration quota was full, there was no way of getting the child into the United States except by an act of Congress.

Not only was this an expensive and unfair procedure, but it also cut off the supply of many children available for adaption in such countries as Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany, as well as orphaned children from the lron Curtain countries.

SINCE the supply of adopted children in the United States is so limited and the demand so great, the chance to adopt a European child was welcomed by many American couples. The International Social Service, a non-profit organization. was charged with attending to machinery involved with delivering a child from the overseas country to the prospective parents in the United States. They did the investigations necessary to see that the child was healthy and clear of legal snafus. Only after all the paper work was completed was the child flown to the United States.

Without legislation to admit these children, international Social Service was terribly handicapped. It had access to the orphaned children and lt had American couples who wanted them. But there were no visas available. Now, at least for the next two years, orphans will be admitted to the United States without quota.

Application for foreign children is still in the hands of local welfare organizations in each community, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish organizations are charged with investigating and recommending prospective parents to the Inter-national Social Service, ISS will not provide a child unless the American couple has been recommended by the local welfare agency.

SOME people who haven't wanted to wait have gone into orphanages while traveling in Europe and bluntly asked if there were any children for adoption. In some cases they have succeeded in getting them.

But in order to get a visa for them, a welfare organization has had to sign the papers that they would be responsible for the child until it is legally adopted in the United States.

In private cases where a couple hears of a child available for adoption, utmost secrecy is advised. The change should take place through a third person, preferably a lawyer or a doctor, and the mother of the child, if possible, should not know who the prospective parents are. By the same token, the less the adoptive parents know about the reel parents the better oft they will be.

Under no condition should people take a child that hasn't been legally signed over for adoption by the real parents, or, in the ease of abandoned children, by the courts.

Most adoptable children abroad these days are of illegitimate birth. ln some cases they are children of American servicemen who have refused to recognize parentage. Almost all European countries provide homes and hospital care for the birth of illegitimate children. Great efforts are made to induce the mother to keep the child. If these fail, she signs over all her rights to the child lin favor of the institution.

Some people have qualms about adopting a child they have never seen. In the case of a child adopted through the ISS, a trial period under supervision of the local welfare agency takes place. It things don't work out, the’agency will find another placement for the child. But environment plays a 99 per cent part as far as adopted children are concerned, and if the adoptive parents aren't satisfied with the child they got, you can bet your life it. isn't the child's fault.