Official Joint Announcement: Expanded Hague Adoption Convention Processing with the United States following the Conclusion of th

Official Joint Announcement: Expanded Hague Adoption Convention Processing with the United States following the Conclusion of the Special Adoption Program (SAP) in Vietnam

The Department of State is pleased to announce that effective December 31, 2020, Vietnam will expand the categories of children that are eligible for intercountry adoption with the United States under the Hague Adoption Convention. This follows Vietnam lifting the limitations of the Special Adoption Program, which previously allowed processing only for children with special needs, over five years old, and/or in biological sibling groups.

The United States and Vietnam held discussions from June to September 2020 on intercountry adoptions with an emphasis on our mutual commitment to cooperate on child protection issues. We acknowledge Vietnam’s legal improvements, particularly under Decree 24/2019/ND-CP, to better align with the Hague Adoption Convention. Vietnam’s commitment to ongoing adoption reform is demonstrated by the progress made to build necessary safeguards and infrastructure, and meet its obligations under the Convention. Such significant improvements have contributed to a determination to process intercountry adoption cases for all eligible children under the Convention and follow the respective laws of the two countries.

Vietnam has not expressed plans to change the current limitation on the number of U.S. adoption service providers (ASPs) authorized to operate in Vietnam. These decisions are entirely within the jurisdiction of the Vietnamese government and these limitations exist for all partner countries participating in intercountry adoptions.

Vietnam and the United States will continue to process cases previously started under the Special Adoption Program to completion for children already determined eligible for intercountry adoption with interested U.S. prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) and/or for which U.S. PAPs have already completed dossiers. For cases other than those mentioned above, processing shall be in accordance with current Vietnamese law and in conformity with the Convention. There will not be changes to how cases are processed by the United States; U.S. PAPs will continue to use the Form I-800 for the Hague Adoption Convention process.

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