An independent voice for ethical adoption
Adopting Chinese Children Through Singapore
It has come to our attention that some agencies are receiving email from a person in Singapore who is attempting to establish a program with American agencies. The email proposes a partnership by which the foreign agency brings Chinese citizens to Singapore where they relinquish their child for adoption to US citizens. According to the email the purpose would be to circumvent the established process which it claims “can be expensive, time-consuming, many limits and difficult, involving complex Chinese legal requirements”.
This communication is quite troubling for several different reasons. These practices are disrespectful to the Chinese government who has the authority to operate their adoption programs as they wish. The Chinese government has shown itself to be interested in the welfare of its children, and has gone to great lengths to establish a system that they feel works to ensure that children are adopted into loving families who can meet their needs.
The Chinese and US governments have established a good working relationship with regards to adoption. Attempts to adopt through a system that disregards the right of the Chinese to make arrangements for their citizens could affect this relationship, causing harm to the thousands of Chinese children that are adopted by US citizens each year.
Additionally, the proposed procedure may directly violate US immigration law in some cases, and certainly violates the spirit of the law in all cases. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), children who have two living birth parents can only be adopted if both parents have unconditionally relinquished their child. However, the law states, “A relinquishment or release by the parents to the prospective adoptive parents or for a specific adoption does not constitute abandonment. Similarly, the relinquishment or release of the child by the parents to a third party for custodial care in anticipation of, or preparation for, adoption does not constitute abandonment unless the third party (such as a governmental agency, a court of competent jurisdiction, an adoption agency, or an orphanage) is authorized under the child welfare laws of the foreign-sending country to act in such a capacity.”
Notice that the law states that the third party that receives a relinquished child must be authorized to act under the child welfare laws of the foreign-sending country. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act:
“Foreign-sending country means the country of the orphan’s citizenship, or if he or she is not permanently residing in the country of citizenship, the country of the orphan’s habitual residence. This excludes a country to which the orphan travels temporarily, or to which he or she travels either as a prelude to, or in conjunction with, his or her adoption and/or immigration to the United States.”
This law specifically precludes adoption of a child with two living birth parents under the arrangement proposed by the agency in Singapore.
Moreover, while the INA provides for the direct relinquishment of a child from a sole surviving parent to an adoptive parent(s), there are several conditions that must be met. The child must be irrevocably released, and the written release must be “in accordance with the laws of the foreign-sending country”. Additionally, the sole or surviving parent must be incapable of providing care to the child “consistent with the standards of the foreign sending country.”
In order to determine that a child would meet these standards under the proposed scheme, it would have to be determined whether or not China’s law forbids its citizens from relinquishing children directly to adoptive parents or if it forbids traveling to a foreign country to relinquish a child for adoption. Even if either of these actions is permissible, the intent of the law is obviously for the child to be relinquished in its country of citizenship. Therefore, the United States might decline to grant the child an orphan visa, or, at the very least, might be required to conduct a thorough investigation of the parent’s circumstances in China. Such an investigation could be lengthy, causing considerable difficulty to the adoptive and birth families, and ultimately to the child.
Agencies and families who may be inclined to attempt such a program should, therefore, seek competent legal counsel before entering such an arrangement.
For more information on the INA defintion of an orphan, please refer to our An Orphan by any Other Name article.
The Immigration law pertaining to orphans can be accessed on our Laws and Regs Page.
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