February 2022

February 28, 2022. State Department Issues Crucial Notice for U.S. Citizens in the Process of Adopting Children from Ukraine. Ukraine has remained a sending country for international adoption to the United States. In view of the tragic Russian invasion, the Department of State has issued a a notice and warning as follows: "The Department recognizes the security situation in Ukraine is of great concern to prospective adoptive parents (PAP) at any stage of the process. PAPs should be aware that the Department has issued a Level 4 Do Not Travel Alert urging U.S. citizens not to travel to Ukraine and advising U.S. citizens in Ukraine to depart immediately if it is safe to do so. The Department has also issued several Security Alerts that address the ongoing crisis. On February 23, the Government of Ukraine declared a state of emergency and closed its airspace to all commercial flights due to Russian military actions. There are currently no in-person U.S. consular services available in Ukraine and the U.S. government will not be able to evacuate U.S. citizens from Ukraine." More Information.

February 14, 2022. End of An Era: All Blessings International and Bethany Christian Services Relinquish International Adoption Accreditation. The Department of State has announced that both All Blessings International and Bethany Christian Services have voluntarily relinquished their accreditation for international adoption services. These two agencies were very active in a myriad of country programs, from China to Haiti, to India, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Their decisions to leave the field of international adoption demonstrate the ongoing contraction of the international adoption field and bode poorly for the future of U.S. international adoption. More Information.

February 9, 2022. Professor Dorothy Roberts Calls For the Abolition of the Child Welfare System. Noted scholar Dorothy Roberts (UPenn) defines such abolition as follows: advocates: "abolishing the child welfare system means completely dismantling it. It means fundamentally ending its philosophy and design, which is to threaten families with taking their children away in order to blame the families for the hardships their children may face, and to control them and their communities. So abolition, to me, means ending the system, but the important part of it is ending the logic of the system. It is equally important to simultaneously build a reimagined approach to child welfare that actually supports families and doesn't rely on child removal. This new approach should support the welfare of families in a way that is effective and caring and in a way that doesn't ignore the structural inequities that produce the problems that families have." To read more of Roberts' interview, please click here.

February 8, 2022. Former EAC Director Pleads Guilty to Fraudulent Adoption Scheme. Margaret Cole, the former Executive Director of European Adoption Consultants, pleaded guilty defrauding U.S. and Polish authorities. According to the Department of Justice, "Margaret Cole, 74, of Strongsville, Ohio, admitted to conspiring with Debra Parris and others to deceive authorities regarding the adoption of a child from Poland. When Cole learned that clients of the adoption agency determined they could not care for one of the two Polish children they were set to adopt, Cole and her co-conspirators took steps to transfer the Polish child to Parris's relatives, who were not eligible for intercountry adoption... Cole, Parris and others agreed to defraud U.S. authorities to conceal their improper transfer of the Polish child. Following the adoption, the child was injured and hospitalized while living with Parris's relatives. Thereafter, Cole made a false statement to the Polish authority responsible for intercountry adoptions." Parris had previously entered into a plea arrangement with U.S. authorities in connection with adoption issues in Uganda as well as Poland. More information.

February 7, 2022. Great Progress: House of Representatives passes Adoptee Ctizienship Act of 2021. We are delighted to report that the House has passed H. R. 1593, the Adoptee Citizenship Act ("ACA") of 2021 as part of the America COMPETES Act of 2022. CAP has been working for more than a decade to achieve passage of this legislation which will grant international adoptees who were brought to the United States but never granted citizenship because their adoptive parents never completed the process of naturalization. The original Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2000 only applied to adoptees who were under 18 in February 2001 or adopted after 2000. This ACA will allow international adoptees who were not covered by the earlier legislation to become citizens. We await Senate action. More information.

February 2, 2022. Latvian Parliament Ends U.S. International Adoptions. The Latvian Parliament has passed new amendments to its Law on the Protection of the Children's Rights which will result in the prohibition of all international adoption from Lativa to the United States, effective July 1, 2022. Under these new amendments, international adoptions from Lativa will only be possible with receiving countries that have ratified both the Hague Adoption Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and have a bilateral agreement with Latvia establishing a legal framework for adoption. The United States has not ratified the CRC. We second the State Department's recommendation that adoption service providers "not refer children to U.S. families at this time as it is unknown if the families will be able to complete the referral process before the law goes into effect or if the Latvian government will allow pending cases to proceed after the effective date." More Information.