International Adoption Harmonization Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I introduced H.R. 5532, the International Adoption Harmonization Act of 2010, to correct two longstanding problems and inconsistencies with respect to adoptions of foreign children by U.S. citizen parents.

First, the bill would harmonize the age requirements of such adoptions and provide some needed flexibility in cases where adoptions take longer than expected. Currently, our law contains two age requirements related to the adoption of foreign children. The general rule is that an adoption must be finalized before a child turns 16 in order for the child to qualify for legal status in the United States. For any sibling of such a child, the adoption must be finalized before the sibling's 18th birthday, but only if the sibling comes from the country that has not signed The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions. The age cutoff for siblings from signatory countries is 16. These different requirements create confusion; and, in particular, with respect to more stringent requirements for the signatory countries, the 16-year-old cutoff provision, failing to meet the cutoff can have disastrous consequences.

Every year, the 16-year-old age requirement prevents a small number of foreign children who have been adopted by U.S. citizen parents from obtaining legal status in the United States. If an adoption takes longer than expected, even for reasons outside the parent's control, and the deadline is missed even by 1 day, the child is left with no remedy whatsoever. Although the child may be legally adopted by U.S. citizen parents, he or she cannot legally remain with them in the United States. Obviously, this is a nonsensical result where one's child has to be removed from the United States or, more likely, the individual comes to us for private relief which we may or may not succeed in granting.

H.R. 5532 remedies the above problem by harmonizing the provisions to require that all adoptions be finalized before a child's 18th birthday. This would provide an additional 2 years by which to complete an adoption before a child is barred from living in the United States with his or her parents. As adoptions for foreign children are rarely completed beyond a child's 16th birthday--China, for example, allows adoptions only up to the age of 14--this bill would affect very few children; but for those few children, this bill is critical.

Second, H.R. 5532 would also harmonize immunization requirements with respect to international adoptions. Current law requires adopted children to have certain vaccinations prior to arrival, but there is an exemption for children under 10 if the adoptive parents certify that necessary vaccinations will be obtained within 30 days of entry.

This exemption, which was created by Congress in 1997, was designed to prevent parents from having to subject their children to numerous and often unsafe immunizations in foreign nations and to allow them to safely immunize their children in the United States.

This exception, however, applies only to children adopted from countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention. It does not apply to children from signatory countries. This bill fixes this nonsensical discrepancy by expanding the definition to also cover children regardless of whether their home country is a signatory to the Hague Convention.

I want to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, JOHN CONYERS; the ranking member, LAMAR SMITH; and Representative JEFF FORTENBERRY, for their support on this measure.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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