The new State Department ruling makes international adoption more difficult for prospective parents

As an adoptee during China’s one-child policy, I have always understood and appreciated the value that international adoption can bring, especially in response to child welfare crises and policy change around the globe.

Unfortunately, the State Department’s new international adoption regulations place significant burdens on parents trying to provide homes for vulnerable children overseas.

Opinion

This comes at an inopportune time when international adoptions are already at an all-time low. International adoptions fell by 93% from 2004 to 2022. A 2023 State Department report showed that there were only 1,275 international adoptions, down from 1,517 the previous year. While many factors contribute to this decline, it is clear that the government is not establishing partnerships and pathways to facilitate adoption.

Under the new regulations, it will now cost thousands of dollars more for agencies to comply with the new accreditation and approval standards. Agencies will have to deal with several reporting aspects of adoptions previously completed by foreign service providers. This will shift more costs to the parents in the adoption process.

Prospective families already face many obstacles to international adoption. International adoption is already very expensive, with average costs ranging from $32,000 to $66,000. Case processing continues to take longer, leaving orphaned children out of permanent family care for long periods of time.

Congress must provide more oversight to the State Department and encourage it to work more closely with the adoption community on policymaking, including the outlook for the 2020 open comment period on the decision.

Rather than working only to protect against unethical adoptions, the State Department must also actively encourage intercountry adoption on behalf of the many children who would benefit from a permanent family and for whom family reunification and domestic adoption are not available.

International adoption is still important when children cannot be placed with families in their country of origin, and UNICEF estimates that there are 17.6 million children who have lost both parents.

Although there are limits to how accurately we can calculate the number of children who are truly in need of international adoption, there remain many children with special needs who require more complex medical treatment available only in developed countries, as well as millions of children living in institutional care. without the prospect of a permanent family (it is estimated that 14 million children will leave orphanages annually). Many of these children are older, and the longer the adoption process takes, the more difficult it will be for them to adjust to a new environment and bond with new primary caregivers.

As other countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, close their doors to international adoption, more children who cannot be placed in the country will continue to languish in uncertainty.

By improving the State Department’s intercountry adoption policies, we can help children in need gain access to safe and loving homes, the one to two million Americans seeking to build families through adoption.

Leah Sutterlin is a Sunnyvale-based freelance writer who has worked for several nonprofits in the foster care and adoption space, most recently the National Adoption Council.