I am getting down to the nitty-gritty of these Transracial Adoption ABCs posts. Today I am up to letter "V", and "V" is for visa.

Visa - No, I do not mean Visa the credit card (although arguably, that could certainly be an adoption term for many of us!). I am talking about the immigration visas required for internationally adopted children.

Immigration is complicated, and immigration for adopted children is no exception.

The process of obtaining a visa for your internationally adopted child is two-fold. The first part of the process is the I600A, the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. Most adoptive parents file this early on in the process, by submitting it to their local United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) office. You can find your local USCIS office here.

This half of the paperwork looks at the parents, and approves them to bring an internationally adopted orphaned child into the United States.

The second half of the paperwork is the I600, the Petition to Classify Orphan As an Immediate Relative. The I600 approves your specific child to come into the U.S. and is meant to ensure that the child you are adopting is indeed a legal orphan.

The I600 is submitted once the adoption or guardianship is completed in the child's country, and the child is otherwise ready to travel home. If the parents are traveling to get their child, then the I600 is usually filed in their child's country at an Embassy or USCIS office. If the parents are having the child escorted, then the I600 can be filed at the local USCIS office where the parents filed the I600A. You should check with your adoption agency on when and where to file these forms.

Sometimes getting the I600 approved is very routine, and other times it involves an orphan investigation and it a likely process. This all depends on the office processing the I600 and the current adoption situation in that country.

Once the I600 is approved, then your child can receive his visa. He will either receive an I4-3 visa, or an IR-4 visa, allowing him to come into the U.S. The visa is put into the child's passport (from their birth country, not a U.S. passport). The IR-3 visa is given when the parents have seen the child before the adoption is final, and the child then becomes a U.S. citizen as soon as they arrive in the United States. The IR-4 visa is given when the parents have not seen the child prior to the adoption (which is often the case in international adoptions), and then the adoption needs to be "finalized" in the U.S. before the child gains citizenship.

When you are adopting internationally, that visa is a much coveted thing, as it is the all-important little piece of paper that says that you can take your child home sweet home.

For more information on adoption and immigration, you can visit the USCIS adoption page.