Adoption Legislation

by Keith Wallace

Current and continuous up-to-date legislative developments are closely followed on www.ethicanet.org. We encourage you to visit this valuable site.

One issue that many of you who have adopted internationally, or who are interested in adopting internationally, want to know about is the status of the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption (The Hague). The final draft regulations were published in the fall of 2003, and all public comments were due by December 15, 2003.

We expect the final Hague regulations to be published sometime the first half of 2004. It is possible that another set of draft regulations could be published and another request for public comment announced, but truly we expect the final regulations to be published the first half of this year.

Once the final regulations are published, the Department of State, which is the Central Authority under The Hague, will begin to accept applications from organizations wanting to be Accrediting Entities under The Hague. No one knows for sure at this point how long that process will last from when the Department of State accepts applications from these entities, until one or more entities are approved by the Department of State.

Following the establishment of one or more Accrediting Entities, I would expect shortly thereafter that the Accrediting Entities will begin accepting applications from agencies to become accredited agencies. Depending upon the number of Accrediting Entities, the number or organizations wanting to become accredited under The Hague and other factors, it is very likely that the full implementation of The Hague will not occur until the year 2006.

Once The Hague is in effect in the United States, as of the last proposed regulations, it will only affect adoptions between two Hague countries. As always, we will continue to keep you informed and up-to-date about all major developments.

The Intercountry Adoption Reform Act of 2003 (ICARA) was introduced by Senator Don Rickels in November 2003. The ICARA Bill (S.1934) is geared at further implementing The Hague and with goals of simplifying the international adoption process. There is some controversy surrounding this bill, and it will be important to see if any amendments or changes are made to this bill.

The Child Citizenship Act was originally passed in 2001, but some of the most important parts of the Act will be instituted early this year through the Child Citizenship Act Program. The exact date of when this Program will go into effect has not yet been announced, but is anticipated in the next couple of months. After the Program goes into effect, any child entering the United States on an IR3 Visa, having been adopted internationally, will automatically receive his/her Certificate of Citizenship within 45 days through the mail. There will no longer be the requirement of filling out a form, paying a fee, and waiting forever.

What has not yet been decided in the Program is exactly how the CIS is going to handle children who have arrived in the United States on IR3 Visa prior to the Program going into effect. These children will fall into two classifications, one where their parents have already applied for the Certificate of Citizenship and other parents who have yet to apply for the Certificate of Citizenship.

This is all a bit confusing because it was only late last year that the CIS eliminated the N643 and initiated the N600 as the form to file for obtaining a Certificate of Citizenship for a child adopted internationally. When this program goes into effect, we will post more information on our Hot News page of our web site.