Musings on Immigration

The case of a 7-year-old Russian boy who was returned to Moscow by his adoptive U.S. mother has highlighted the challenges families face when an international adoption goes wrong. For those of you that don’t know, an American woman, Tori Hansen, adopted a little boy in Russia. He had been removed from his alcoholic biological mother’s care a few years ago and put in an institution. He came to the United States, resided in the home of Ms. Hansen as her adopted son for several months and then last week, she put him on a plane back to Russia with a note pinned inside his jacket that read “I no longer wish to parent this child.” Apparently the child had emotional difficulties, was violent and difficult to control. That Hansen wasn’t aware of his potential problems prior to the adoption is hard to believe. A quick internet search of “Russia” and “older children” and “adoption” yields a host of potential challenges, including attachment disorders, behavioral problems and psychological iss...

I’ve been receiving lots of inquiries about how we can help the children who were orphaned by last week’s earthquake in Haiti. The answer is - it depends. Just like any foreign adoption, an inter-country adoption from Haiti is a complicated process requiring us to prove that the child in question is an orphan and obtain an adoption decree which complies with the laws of the child’s home country- in this case Haiti. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, in coordination with the U.S. Department of State (DOS), announced a humanitarian parole policy allowing orphaned children from Haiti to enter the United States temporarily on an individual basis to ensure that they receive the care they need. Children who have been identified as orphans eligible for adoption and who have been legally adopted in a Haitian Court or who were about to be adopted in a Haitian Court and who had established a relationship with the American prospective adoptive parents will be allow...

Save the Children, World Vision and a unit of the British Red Cross have called for a halt for new adoptions in Haiti. The focus must be on tracing any family members that children may still have and reuniting them. “Any hasty new adoptions would risk permanently breaking up families, causing long-term damage to already vulnerable children, and could distract from aid efforts in Haiti,” the agencies said in a joint statement. Stories of Haitian orphanages struggling after the quake and the plight of the children there also has led many kind hearts to ask about adopting children. After reading a CNN report on Haitian orphans, CNN.com reader Dana Fanning wrote, “It broke my heart. My husband and our 4 children want to know if and how we could adopt [any] of the children orphaned by the earthquake.” Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said the “vast majority” of children on their own in Haiti are not orphans, but were simply separated from their families in the chaos. Thei...