Part II of USE issues

If you are not new to the intercountry adoption process the following information will be all too familiar to you, but for those of you, who were like me over a year ago, this will be eye opening.

•  The USE in Addis shockingly sent many many case files from agencies across the board over to Nairobi. We are just one of the many in this situation. Typically they only send 10 a year and those are cases that are very complicated.
• The USE in Addis is refusing to talk to agencies or prospective parents about this situation.
•  Our daughter's case file was clearly approvable according to the Ethiopian government and our case worker. Her life story is so clear cut that we are so perplexed by what is happening.
• We have absolutely no idea where our daughter's case file is and the Embassy is refusing to tell us.
•  The USE in Addis used to be very helpful to the Ethiopian staffers working with adoption agencies, helping them figure out how to do things more "American" with the case files. Not too long ago that changed when a certain official took over. This is the same person, clearly anti-intercountry adoption, who is rumored to have shut down other countries to intercountry adoptions to the US.
•  Certain US political leaders are pushing other countries to become part of something called the Hague Convention. http://adoption.state.gov/hague_convention/hague_vs_nonhague.php. Although this seems like a great thing it takes many dollars and resources to become Hague accredited. It took the US 10 years, for crying out loud, to become Hague approved.
• It is possible and now appears to be likely that Ethiopia finally told the US "No" to US pressures of becoming Hague approved.
• The State Department, who controlls the USCIS and Embassies, decided to make a statement due to the above, and now we, among many other families and children have found ourselves in the middle of a political agenda of a few. This is a pretty likely theory.
• Another theory out there is that the USE in Addis got very behind in their work load and sent lots of cases off to a more efficient office under the farce that these cases were not "clearly approvable".
• The US wants to slow adoptions to Ethiopia way down and this tactic they have just done is working. Several families have already pulled out of the Ethiopia program from our agency. How many others have done the same with other agencies? We feel the US has an agenda.
•  It is widely believed that many US officials working in the US Department of State are anti-intercountry adoption.
•  Why? It may have started out with good reasons. Do you remember years ago when the woman sat at McDonalds and spilled the hot coffee on herself and filed suit against McDonalds? Then every McDonalds had to put signs up saying, "Warning, the coffee is hot". Our country is very good at having knee jerk reactions to any problem we face. Sometimes that is a good thing, we know. Sometimes the rest of the population suffers over the cause of a few. But, we all know there is an underground evil known as child trafficking. No one could deny that countries in Africa are vulnerable to this. There has even been some cases within international adoption, mostly private adoptions. But, intercountry adoption can be a small way to decrease some of Africa's orphan crisis, removing a small percentage of children from the vulnerability of being a victim of trafficking. But, for the state department to have such a knee jerk reaction to trafficking is hurting a system that is working albeit on a small scale. Resources you might want to look at: Not For Sale by David Batstone and There is No Me Without You by Melissa Faye Green (If you have more resources you think would be helpful, please add those in the comments section).
• There is not a single person working for the intercountry adoption process that would argue that a thorough and complete investigation needs to be completed before a child is adopted. We all want it to be completed with due diligence.
• There are 5 MILLION orphans in Ethiopia. http://www.unicef.org/search/search.php?querystring=ethiopia+orphan. There is an orphan crisis! Who is recruiting more and where are they going when they don't have room for the millions they already have? There are not enough prospective adoptive parents to make a dent in these numbers right now.
• Adoption agencies make diddly squat on an intercountry adoption to Ethiopia. The money goes to fund the orphanage, to keep lights on in the US office, and to pay a meager salary to the highly dedicated case workers who could be making more at Walmart.
• You also might want to do some deeper research into UNICEF.
• The Department of State (US Embassy is this branch of government) owns the Hague Treaty. For every country that the DOS gets to sign this treaty, the DOS gets money for it. So, in September we believe that Ethiopia finally told the US they couldn't sign the treaty. We believe that this mess is a direct result of the DOS trying to bully Ethiopia and to try and get their way. "If you don't sign this, then we are going to make a mess of adoptions in your country."  

This should all make you mad. This should also make you want to do some of your own research into the situation. One document that I want you to for sure read is the latest alert that USCIS sent out on Oct 7, 2011. Timing is interesting isn't it? In the following article you are going to gasp when you see the percentage of reported errors found in case files submitted to the USE they have quoted. What you need to know is that after you read this article and you see that they have used the scary term "fraudulent" you need to know two important things:
1. That high percentage lumps misspellings(very high occurrence with a 35% literacy rate in ET, including adoptive family's names misspelled) and cover letters that say "orphan" vs more specifics.
2. The USE in Addis HAS NEVER DENIED A VISA to an adopted child... EVER. So, there is this huge percentage of incomplete or "fraudulent" case files submitted to the USE that they are reporting, but they have never denied a visa? They answered this themselves when asked in their last teleconference with US adoption agencies in April of this year and then in June. It came straight from their mouths.
It has crossed my mind that they are now going to try and deny visas to prove something. Our agency assures us that there is no possible way they could do this legally with our case as it is complete and substantial. There are bigger legal issues that they could not get away with. But, they can sure delay our reuniting with our daughter.

Here is that alert they posted meant to scare future prospective adoptive parents and discourage anyone from pursuing an adoption of these precious children.
http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_alerts_notices.php?alert_notice_type=notices&alert_notice_file=ethiopia_11

To quote my friend, Mike, "I am as mad as fire". Read the next blog if you are still with me and would like to see what I have started doing to maybe help bring our daughter home quicker and to hopefully make a difference for the children in Ethiopia who deserve families just like any child does. Believe me, you are going to want to read the next post for sure. If you are thinking, "No way, Becky". Or thinking, "Our government wouldn't do this" then keep on reading friend.