Cut-and-Paste Letter for Your Congress-Person

Please use this letter to request help from congress.
Please feel free to edit as needed. (FYI: Items in RED need to be personalized with your info.)
Please send the letter by US Postal Service. Your Congress-Person needs a paper letter in order to "take-on" your case.
Best of luck, and please let us know your response.

DATE
YOUR STREET ADDRESS
YOUR CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE

Dear Representative/Senator (and add NAME OF your REPRESENTATIVE or SENATOR):

I am writing to ask you to intercede (on my behalf / on behalf of my friend/son/daughter/etc) with a government agency.

Recently, the rules and regulations in the United States of America regarding international adoption have changed. Congress passed The Hague into law. When this was done, Congress explicitly stated that families who are in the process of adopting a child internationally and who have been in process prior to April 1, 2008, are considered “transition cases.” As such, these families are, by law, grandfathered into the adoption rules and regulations that existed PRIOR TO April 1, 2008 until their adoptions are completed, and these families DO NOT have to re-file under the new Hague guidelines. However, the Department of State and the US Department of Homeland Security’s CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services, aka USCIS) bureau are blatantly ignoring this law and forcing all transitional families to abide by the new regulations. This not only contravenes the law as written, but also creates undue hardship for the thousands of US families affected, and will likely cause the disruption of the adoption.

The Hague Convention on International Adoption, which was implemented this year, states the following regarding the transition rule:

"SEC. 505 (b) TRANSITION RULE The Convention and this Act shall not apply--(1) in the case of a child immigrating to the United states, if the application for advance processing of an orphan petition or petition to classify an orphan as an immediate relative for the child is filed before the effective date described in subsection (a)(2)" which was April 1, 2008.

I/we am/are therefore asking for your help. We are asking for you to intercede for us (for our daughter/friend/etc.) with the government agencies of USCIS and NBC, and allow us (our son’s family/my friend/etc.) to complete the adoption that is in process under the I600A as an I600A case until the adoption is finalized.

Very Best Regards,

YOUR NAME