New State Department ruling makes inter-country adoption harder for prospective parents | Opinion

New State Department ruling makes inter-country adoption harder for prospective parents | Opinion

As an adoptee during China’s one-child policy, I’ve always understood and appreciated the value that international adoption can bring, especially as a response to child welfare crises and changing politics across the globe.

Unfortunately, new regulations from the Department of State on inter-country adoption impose significant burdens on parents trying to provide homes for vulnerable children overseas.

Opinion

This comes at an inopportune time when inter-country adoptions are already at an all-time low. International adoptions declined by 93% from 2004 to 2022. A 2023 State Department report showed that there were only 1,275 intercountry adoptions, down from 1,517 the year prior. Although many factors contribute to this drop, it is clear that the government is not establishing partnerships and pathways to facilitate adoption.

Under new regulations, it will now cost thousands of dollars more for agencies to comply with new accreditation and approval standards. Agencies will need to handle more reporting aspects of adoptions previously completed by foreign service providers. This will pass on more costs to parents in the adoption process.

Prospective families are already facing many hurdles to inter-country adoption. International adoption is already very costly, with average costs ranging from $32,000 to $66,000. The processing of cases continues to get longer, leaving orphaned children outside permanent family care for extended periods of time.

Congress needs to conduct more oversight of the State Department and encourage them to work more closely with the adoption community on policy making, including insights from the 2020 open comment period on the ruling.

Instead of working solely to protect against unethical adoptions, the State Department needs to also actively encourage inter-country adoption on behalf of the many children who would benefit from having a permanent family, and for whom family reunification and domestic adoption are not available.

Inter-country adoption is still important when children cannot be placed with families in their country of origin, and UNICEF estimates there to be 17.6 million children who have lost both of their parents.

Although there are limits to how accurately we can calculate the number of children truly in need of international adoption, there remain many children with special needs who require more complex medical treatment only available in developed countries, as well as millions of children residing in institutionalized care without the prospect of a permanent family (an estimated 14 million children will age out of orphanages annually). Many of these children are older and the longer the adoption process takes, the more difficult it will be to adjust to a new environment and attach to new primary caregivers.

Since other countries, like the Netherlands and Denmark, are closing their doors to inter-country adoption, more children who cannot be placed domestically will continue to languish in uncertainty.

By improving the State Department’s inter-country adoption policies, we can help children in need gain access to safe and loving homes from the one to two million Americans looking to build families through adoption.

Leah Sutterlin is a freelance writer based in Sunnyvale who has worked for several nonprofits in the foster care and adoption space, most recently the National Council For Adoption.