The Reason for This Blog

We have created this blog to help American families who are in process for an international adoption, and who began that adoption as an I600A case, and are now being forced to switch to an I800 case by the United States Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the National Benefits Council (NBC).
In 2008, the US Congress passed the Hague Adoption Treaty into law. When they did, they wrote into the law that ALL ADOPTERS who had begun their adoption prior to April 2008 as an I600 or I600A case could continue their adoption that way until it was completed.
USCIS and the NBC have since decided that they don't want to do it that way and are informing adoption agencies (AAs) and waiting parents (WPs) that they have no choice but to do the new I800 Hague process.
First of all, this is unfair, as it directly goes against the law as passed by Congress.
Secondly, this is having, and will continue to have, disastrous effects on the in-process adoptions as all will be faced with increased costs and will have their adoption process severely delayed, and some will have their adoption journey ended completely by this rule.
The number of WPs/adoptive families in the USA this affects is easily over 10,000, and adoption agency insiders estimate it to be over 23,000!
This affects many international adoptions, including Guatemala and China, where adoption referral waits have grown.
This "change" demanded by USCIS and NBC is not required by the countries referring the children. It is not even required by the US government. It is only required by those two offices.
That civil servants, office workers, feel that they have the right to indelibly alter WPs' lives for their own convenience is criminal, and should be stopped by our Congress.
We know that in the USA now we face elections, and our politicians are busy with that, but serving their people is what their job is about and they should make time to serve us in our time of need.
We also know that the USA is having a financial crisis, and we understand that much of that crisis was brought on by lack of government oversight, just like the crisis WPs face with their adoptions. However, unlike fat-cat corporations, we are not asking for a financial hand-out or money from the American tax payers. We are asking that the law our Congress passed be followed as written, and that all the affected WPs be allowed to complete their adoptions as they were begun. We will gladly pay the continued I600A fees and the fingerprint fees. We do not want anything for free; we simply do not want random bureaucrats re-interpreting a law designed to help us so that it instead helps them. That is wrong, and we need Congressional oversight.
If you click on the photo in the top right corner of this blog you will be taken to the online petition where you can sign on to help your own adoption, or the adoption of a friend or loved one. Or, to simply help one less child grow up without a family.
Please check back periodically for blog updates to see how many signatures we have collected and any changes that have occurred in this situation.
Remember that we are competing with elections and Wall Street for Congress' attention, so please pass this on and try to "collect" as many signatures as possible.
Thanks so much for your time and effort. It means the world to so many Americans, and to so many children.

PS. Although the petition asks for your email address, no emails will be visible to the public. As several people have already signed the petition, you can see that this is true. We need to collect the emails to prove you are real people, and not just names we pulled from a phonebook. We will not email you or spam you. We very much respect your privacy, and your contribution to the petition.
ALSO NOTE: We are not asking for any money from anybody for anything. Should anyone contact you requesting financial assistance it is not us. We are all volunteers.