USCIS Office of Public Engagement: "Grandfathered" Adoptions Engagement

Dear Stakeholder,

 

USCIS invites interested parties to participate in a national stakeholder teleconference on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 @ 2:00 PM EDT. The purpose of this engagement is to discuss changes to the process of “grandfathering” certain adoption cases as orphan cases when the U.S. and another country become Hague partners. The call will focus particularly on cases for Chinese and Guatemalan children as these are the countries from which there are currently “grandfathered” cases.

 

The U.S. became a Hague Adoption Convention partner with China and Guatemala on April 1, 2008. At that time, there were many U.S. families in the process of adopting children from China and Guatemala under the orphan process. USCIS allowed those U.S. families’ cases to be “grandfathered” under the non-Hague process so that they could process their cases to completion as orphan cases. As the second “grandfathered” Form I-600A approvals for many of these cases are now beginning to expire, USCIS has developed an alternative approach that we believe will preserve the standing of the cases in the most effective and appropriate way.

 

Please join us on this conference call to discuss the options for families that are still in the adoptions process with “grandfathered” cases, specifically involving China and Guatemala.

 

During the session, USCIS will explain how we plan to proceed for the remaining grandfathered cases from these two countries and address questions and comments from participants.

 

To Participate in the Session

Any interested parties may participate in this event by telephone. All participants must respond to this invitation. Please contact the Office of Public Engagement at public.engagement@dhs.gov by Monday January 30, 2012 referencing “Adoption” in the subject line of your email.  Please also include your full name and the organization you represent, if any, in the body of the email.

 

To Join the Call

On the day of the engagement please use the information below to join the session by phone. We recommend calling in 10 minutes prior to the start of the teleconference.

 

Call-in Number: 1-888-989-6491

Overseas Toll Number: 1-415-228-3902

Passcode: Adoption

 

 

Kind Regards,

 

Office of Public Engagement

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

www.uscis.gov