I don’t think the issue here is the travel visa. She has a legal tourist visa. Assuming that @twoinanddone is correct that it is legal to get a tourist visa while awaiting an immigration visa, the tourist visa is not causing a problem.
She doesn’t have the needed documents and apparently she can’t get the needed documents. That’s the problem. This legally adopted child of two Americans should be able to stay in the US, but she can’t.
The travel visa expires. That’s the issue this month.
The problem is not the expiration of the travel visa but the lack of the immigration visa she ought to have.
The title of this thread is completely misleading, as the clear intent is to sweep this family into the whole “ICE is separating families at the border” story. That is not at all what is happening here. The laws this family did not follow have been in place, and have been enforced, for decades. The family went with the “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” model of dealing with bureaucracy, and it didn’t work for them. It was a risk. It sucks for them, yes, but they knew the risk. It has been 17 years since I adopted internationally, and even I know they did not follow the proper procedure. There IS a procedure; other parents in their unusual but hardly unique circumstances manage to do it. They should have as well.
This is not an accurate description of the parents’ behavior up until now. They have done nothing illegal.
If they want to continue to obey the law, they must now leave their own country, or send their daughter overseas without them to live somewhere with someone. This does not seem like the right result.
Moreover, the existing laws do not seem to contemplate their situation. Allowing dual citizens to adopt in their other country and then bring their adopted children to the US does not sound, to me, like a recipe for adoption fraud at any scale, because most people are not dual citizens in the US and in some country where there are children fraudulently available for adoption.
The child still needed the right papers. Even if there were a footnote for adoptions by US citizens that only met the foreign country’s laws, the child still needs the paperwork, passport, other documents, whatever, to get into the US. Same as my kids, adopted in the US.
That’s what strikes me. What she had was the tourist visa. That’s temporary and now expiring.
Do I think this is a kind or fair situation to be in? No. They may have done “nothing illegal.” But apparently, they did not follow the right legal procedures.
I’m not understanding your point, @lookingforward. The child needs the right documents, and the parents have been trying for years without success to get the right documents. It’s not like they woke up yesterday and realized their daughter has to leave the country at the end of the month.
I worked for Social Services many years ago and we had a saying for people who needed help, but for whatever reason, did not qualify. We called it “falling through the cracks.” This is what has happened to these people. I want the family to be together just as much as anyone and I hope their journey turns out ok.
Just my opinion, but I believe the dual citizenship has worked against then. The domestic adoption in Peru was granted mostly because he was a Peruvian citizen and they had a home which they owned and were living in in Peru.
If they were both only US citizens they would never have been able to complete a domestic adoption. I believe this is where people are are comparing apples to oranges. This is not an international adoption. The child was legally adopted by the Courts of Peru. It would be the same if you adopted a child here in the US. If you moved to another country, you adopted child’s case would not be considered an international adoption.
Also, my opinion, but I believe the couple knew their only recourse to get the child into the US was through a travel visa. They took a gamble and lost.
Both my kids are from China. Both my husband and I were govt workers at the time (now retired) and if it’s one thing you know from working in govt is that all the t’s must be crossed and all the i’s must be dotted. I would be willing to bet that at the time of their domestic adoption that they thought all they had to do was apply for a visa for the child and they would have no problems returning to the US. They were probably blindsided by the rules and regulations.
My hope is that this is all settled and they can continue their lives here in the US.
this really isn’t an uncommon situation. People live in China and Japan and adopt in those countries, but when they want to return to the US with the non-citizen child, they have to complete the paperwork. Jon Huntsman adopted two children while he was ambassador to China, and he/wife had to fill out the paperwork. Military members adopt all the time in the countries they live in, and their spouses may be citizens of that country, but they still need to file all the paperwork for an international adoption if they want to return to the US.
https://www.uscis.gov/adoption/bringing-your-internationally-adopted-child-united-states
I think this is what they did, and either had the timeline wrong or some other problem with the I-130. Peru is a Hague Country and it is more difficult to NOT follow the Hague adoption process.
It appears the child was placed with the couple before being deemed abandoned. The couple knew who the mother was. The orphanage, the intermediary, placed the child 11 days after birth. Was there a court order before placement? We don’t know.
THe Peruvian adoption was finalized in April 2017. She apparently came here this past March, on the tourist visa, before any US documents were finalized.
Fang, I’m referring to the fact that this “deportation” threat is based on the tourist visa. Should the entire procss be simpler? Sure. SHould there be some sort of special dispensation? Imo, yes. But this is now also a media case.
There’s some misinfo, she wasn;t adopted at days old, Ibelieve this was originally foster. But a congressman is now trying to help.
“The Becerras say they don’t know why Angela’s immigration application was denied. David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, suspects it has to do with their application for a tourist visa. “You are just not supposed to use a tourist visa to come to the United States to then apply for permanent residency,” Bier tells Reason. Bier says it sounds like the Becerras first applied for a permanent visa, then opted for a tourist one instead. “As a consequence of that, the administration treats you as having given up your other visa,” he adds.”
That’s from a blog but I hope that the fact it isn;t just opinion will allow me to give the link https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/10/4-year-old-daughter-of-american-parents
Adding: ECMotherx2, see, whatever the immigration procedures, she needed something to get her into the US. like any traveller, citizen or not. She couldn’t just come as their child with no documentation except the Peruvian adoption papers and maybe a Peruvian passport. But they apparently opted to bring her with Peruvian id and a tourist visa. In contrast, had they gotten further, they would have had some sort of US official id or approving paperwork.
All of this discussion is demonstrating the initial premise: The U.S. immigration system is a ridiculous warren of incomprehensible procedures and rules-for-the-sake-of-rules. It’s almost impossible to negotiate without expensive and constant advice from legal specialists.
I don’t know if this relates to the Trump Administration and ICE or not. Clearly the bizarre rules for children from abroad who are adopted predate ICE, but the inability to get a waiver in these circumstances may not. It’s completely possible that these people were getting advice from someone who was more or less expert, but the way the rules are enforced changed. Or maybe not. I get that lots of people have adopted kids born in foreign countries, and all of them had to develop sophistication about how to get their kids into the U.S. legally. Furthermore, lots of them see this family as trying to pull a fast one.
That said, almost none of the procedural rules discussed here makes any sense.
Most of the rules have been in place for a long time but there was sometimes a look the other way attitude. That is why so many teens end up living here and never on the path to citizenship. I would think most people agree that the system needs an overhaul. I think they either got bad info or thought they would figure it out when they got here which is probably what the millions before them did when they brought babies and chidren in. These folks are lucky he held onto his Peruvian citizenship as he can go back to Peru and dot the i-s and cross the t-s and the mom can work the system from here in the US
Amen, @JHS. I know lots of immigrants, and to a person they report having to comply with ridiculous, incomprehensible rules, go through absurd requirements and pay immigration lawyers large fees. And they’re subject to almost endless delays.
It doesn’t seem to me that this family is trying to pull a fast one. If it’s possible for the government to grant a waiver, I don’t know why they don’t just do it.
the other issue is backlog: there are literally thousands of cases ahead of them…
It seems like it ought to be uncontroversial to get rid of the backlog and fix the byzantine immigration system. We can disagree about who ought to be allowed to immigrate to the US, but the people who are allowed to immigrate ought to have an easier and cheaper time of it, and the people who are going to be denied ought to be denied more quickly.
It seems like they don’t know why her application was denied. Maybe they were advised to go ahead with the tourist visa with the expectation that it was a sure thing that her application would be accepted before the visa expired. It doesn’t seem like they were intentionally trying to pull a fast one or buck the line. They brought her to the US in March, probably before the DOJ changed some of the policies on handling cases.
The basic policies didn’t really change just how enforcement was managed. I don’t agree with shock and awe tactics but I do agree an examination of policies and implementation need to be examined. This particular situation was strongly due to the fact that it was NOT an international adoption generated by the US in conjunction with a foreign country. It was an in country adoption by a couple living in Peru and a father who was a Peruvian citizen. This case really as little to nothing to do with refugee flight and the media is, as it often is, slightly skewed in approach.
I disagree, JHS. The rules are pretty clear. The US signed the Hague convention (1993) many years later (2005?) and had a pretty good method before that. I adopted my daughter before the Hague convention was signed by the US. I filed the documents, went through the homestudy and other investigations, submitted financial records, etc. and was approved. At the same time I filed with the Chinese government, traveled and completed the adoption in China. My daughter entered the US with a Chinese passport and an IR-3 visa (immediate relative). I then had to go through the process to get her citizenship. Even though I completed all the paperwork for citizenship the Child Citizenship Act went into effect 7 days before her citizenship appointment so she actually became a citizen under the Child Citizenship Act.
Hague process is not that different, just different forms. You start the US forms and the adoption in the foreign country at the same time.
The Hague convention on adoption was created to prevent trafficking. Corruption was pretty bad in some countries and there was a lot of bribery and kidnapping. Guatemala and Cambodia are two countries with which the US had adoption agreements and procedures but they were ended. This couple chose to adopt in a country where adoptions are under the Hague convention. It’s a very clear procedure. They just chose not to follow that procedure and to try to get an immigration visa (I-130) and it was denied. In the article I cited in post #48, it warns that if you do not follow the Hague procedure, you are facing a much stricter review under the I-130.
Yes, it takes time to do all the paperwork. If you are Madonna or Angelina, you can pay people to push your paperwork through. The rest of us stand in line to have documents certified and notarized, gather copies of birth certificates and homestudies, gathered financial records, and medical records.
If you come on a visitor’s visa, you have to leave to re-enter the country on the correct type of visa. A neighbor had married a US citizen, had two US citizen children, but when her appointment came up, she had to return to Mexico to re-enter the US on the correct visa. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but that’s the process. She took her children to Mexico and it was 8+ months later and she was still waiting to be called to her appointment. That’s the process.
I don’t think they are trying to pull a fast one, they just didn’t complete the process.
Why should the government issue a waiver? It is possible for the forms to be filed correctly, they just didn’t do it and entered the US on a visitor’s visa, agreeing that the visitor will exit the country on the expiration of the visa.
I really do think the procedures have a point. How do we know this child wasn’t taken from her birth mother without consent? Just because this woman goes on TV and says so? How do we know they didn’t pay the orphanage or a person to get the baby? The procedure is to check on that. The process checks out the orphanages to make sure they are legit, to make sure money didn’t change hands, to make sure the parents don’t have criminal records, that they have enough money to raise the child and won’t be a burden on the US welfare system.
You are relying on facts not in evidence. This adoption didn’t start with the parents trying to adopt a child from a foreign country. It started with someone handing a citizen of a foreign country a baby. Under those circumstances, we don’t know that the couple “chose” to use the domestic form of adoption in Peru, deliberately not using the form that would have made it easier for them to bring the child back to the United States. Instead they may have just adopted the baby in the way that lots of Peruvian citizens adopt babies, without knowing there was another process they should have followed, only to then discover the trouble they were in.
We can’t assume they deliberately didn’t follow the rules. Maybe they didn’t know about the rules. Maybe they thought they were legally adopting their daughter, and then would be able to bring her to the US. If I had been in their situation, I wouldn’t have known that there was some special way of adopting that I had to use, and I don’t know why I should expect they would know.