#Children's Rights
Target:
US Congress and Senate
Region:
United States of America
Website:
www.equalityforadoptedchildren.org

The intercountry adoption process is a long, tedious process for American citizens seeking to adopt a foreign born child. Paperwork includes home studies, finger printing and criminal checks. The process can take up to three years to complete. At the completion of the adoption, the child must be approved for a U.S. immigrant visa in order to enter the U.S. and gain citizenship. The immigrant visa is required despite the fact that the “immigrant” is the child of a U.S. citizen. The U.S. is one of the few developed countries in the world that requires internationally adopted children of citizens to immigrate in order to join their new families.

Most countries recognize internationally adopted children as citizens upon the finalization of their adoption. The Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act (FACE Act) would recognize that internationally adopted children deserve to be treated as children of American citizens and accorded the same citizenship process as children born abroad to American citizens.

Under the FACE Act, Adoptive parents would apply for a U.S. passport and Consular Report of Birth instead of a visa. These documents provide adoptive parents with immediate proof of citizenship for their adopted child and provide immediate proof of U.S. citizenship.

We, the undersigned, call on the U.S. Congress and Senate to pass the FACE Act into law. This act addresses needed changes to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA). It will improve the CCA by eliminating the need for an immigrant visa for an internationally adopted child of an American citizen to enter the United States.

Once the international adoption is completed by an American citizen and the child is determined to be adoptable under U.S. law, citizenship would attach. The FACE Act would treat internationally adopted children of American citizens as children of American citizens instead of immigrants and would provide them with equality with biological children born abroad to American citizens.

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The FACE Act of 2009 petition to US Congress and Senate was written by Equality for Adopted Children (EACH) and is in the category Children's Rights at GoPetition.