The “job” of USCIS in an international adoption is two-part. They have to approve the parents to be qualified to adopt, and they have to approve the child as being a legal orphan and qualifying for a US visa. There is lots of info on their website regarding who qualifies as a legal orphan, and it is very important that you are working with a trust-worthy agency who can ensure that the child you are adopting, is indeed an orphan, not just in the sense that they are not living with any parents, but in the legal US immigration sense too. In cases where a child is legally adopted in another country but that child does not meet the USCIS’s definition of a legal orphan, that child can not come to the US until the adoptive parents have lived with that child (in another country) for two years. Not a good situation to be in.

Most parents will file a form titled the I600A near the beginning of their adoption process. It is a one page, two-sided form that asks general questions about the adoptive parents and the adoption. This form also requires an approved homestudy, along with a photo copy of the birth certificate of the adoptive parent or parents and any marriage certificates and divorce decrees. Some offices allow the homestudy to be sent after the application is mailed in, and some require it all be sent together. Some offices require the homestudy to come directly from the homestudy agency or from the state. In most states (if not all), a copy of the homestudy is sent to the state, and the state sends on some type of letter of approval to the USCIS office at some point in the process. The fee to file your I600A is $545 (this increases fairly regularly, so check the website for current fees).

Another aspect of the I600A is fingerprinting. All adoptive parents (and anyone else over the age of 18 living in the home) must be fingerprinted at a USCIS application support center. The fee is $70 per person, and should be included with the $545 you send in with your I600A application.

Once your USCIS office receives your application, supporting documents and check, they will send you a notice to be fingerprinted. Depending on where you live, you will either receive an appointment time and location, or it will say to go at your convenience to a location or one of several locations.

Once you are fingerprinted and all of your documents, etc. are turned in, you are officially waiting for your “I-171H”. This is the form that USCIS will send you once your I600A application has been approved. It is required in a lot of adoption programs before you can submit your dossier documents, and it is required in all international adoptions (I believe) before the child can travel home. The I-171H shows that USCIS has approved the adoptive parents to bring an orphan immigrant child into the United States.

The I600A asks where your approval should be sent and what adoption agency you are using. It is possible to leave it blank and fill it in later, but it does save you some grief if you know what country you are adopting from, whether you will escort or travel and what adoption agency you are using before you send in this application.

This form also asks how many children you are adopting, and will approve you to adopt that many children. So if you are open to siblings or more than one child (and your homestudy will approve you for this) make sure you fill it out accurately.

To be continued...