August 13, 2010
Important Information Regarding Adoptions From Nepal
http://adoption.state.gov/news/nepalalerts.html
The Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have decided to suspend processing of new adoption cases from Nepal that involve children who are claimed to have been found abandoned, because documents presented in support of the abandonment of these children in Nepal have been found to be unreliable and circumstances of alleged abandonment cannot be verified because of obstacle in the investigation of individual cases.
•Information for Nepal adoption pipeline cases – 8/13/10
•Joint Statement on Suspension of Processing for New Adoption Cases Based on Abandonment in Nepal – 8/6/10
•Frequently Asked Questions: Suspension of Adoptions of Abandoned Children in Nepal – 8/6/10
•Notice: Caution About Pursuing Adoption in Nepal – 5/26/10
http://adoption.state.gov/news/nepal_pipeline_cases.html
Information for Pipeline Cases
August 13, 2010
We are sending this message to answer your questions about the status of the program that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of State are currently setting up that will enable the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu to complete the required I-604 Determination of Child for Adoption (sometimes referred to as the “orphan investigation”) in your case before you travel to Nepal to finalize your adoption.
As of this date, the program is not yet finalized. Every effort is being made to finalize and implement the program in the immediate future. The Office of Children’s Issues will inform you when the program is implemented and will post a notice on adoption.state.gov with information and instructions. Please continue to monitor http://www.adoption.state.gov for updated information.
At this time we do not recommend that prospective adoptive parents travel to Nepal to finalize their adoptions. We are concerned that problems identified in our public announcement will affect the processing of all adoption cases in Nepal. Prospective adoptive parents who do elect to travel to Nepal to finalize their adoptions should be prepared for an extended stay. If the I-600 petition is determined to be not clearly approvable, it will be forwarded to USCIS/New Delhi for further processing, per standard procedure.
We wish to caution prospective adoptive parents that even with a pre-approval program in place, it may take the U.S. government several months to process adoption cases to completion. Questions concerning adoptions in Nepal may be sent to either AskCI@state.gov or AdoptionsNepal@state.gov .
The Embassy is working with the Government of Nepal to see if the 60 day period in which prospective adoptive parents are required to travel to Nepal to finalize their adoption can be extended. We will provide more information as soon as it is available.
The best way to contact the Embassy is by email at AdoptionsNepal@state.gov . Please include your name, your child’s name, your adoption agency, and, if possible, the immigrant visa case number for your child’s case (this number begins with a year, followed by the letters KDU, followed by several more numbers) and can be found on any document sent to you by the National Visa Center).
Please continue to monitor adoption.state.gov for updated information on adoptions in Nepal.
Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/