| Jennifer Hopkins | January 7, 2005 |
On January 5, 2005, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a Statement Regarding Adoption of Tsunami Orphans.
Many Americans have rallied in many ways to offer support to those individuals in regions affected by the tsunami. One of these is the offer to adopt children who are survivors of the disaster. In the statement, USCIS states that Americans' good intentions to adopt children who survived the tsunami in the Indian Ocean region are "commendable, ...[but] not the recommended solution, at least in the short term."
Adoption professionals - as a standard - try to keep the children close to their family members and community. In addition, it is "difficult to determine whether children whose parents are missing are truly orphans...many children have become separated from one or both parents whose fate is unknown. Even when the children are indeed orphaned, they are often taken in by other relatives...[which is] generally a better solution than uprooting the child completely."
The USCIS press release states that "it will take many months before the countries affected by the disaster will be able to identify the children who are actual orphans." Even then, it will be up to the countries to determine whether the orphans will be "available for international adoption."
The above-referenced USCIS Statement also offers USCIS, State Department, and consular links to valuable resources regarding International Adoption, as well as some of the adoption laws and rules of specific countries affected by the tsunami:
- The process of inter-country adoptions by U.S. citizens: http://uscis.gov/graphics/services/index2.htm
- Bangladesh: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_334.html
- India: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_398.html
- Indonesia: http://www.usembassyjakarta.org/consular/adopting.html
- Kenya: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_409.html
- Malaysia: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_418.html
- Sri Lanka: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_325.html
- Thailand: http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_337.html