Craziness of adoption paperwork

Now that all of Ike's paper work is completed, I have time to reflect and share the redundancy and ridiculousness of the forms we had to fill out for the US government. As an attorney, I do know that for every line in a form there is a reason behind it. But is there really a reason (for example on the N600 form for Certificate of Citizenship) to fill out "your father's current wife. is this person your mother?" answer "yes" then complete information about current wife/mother. Next section "fill out information about your mother", even if your father's current wife is you mother! The you have to do the same thing with your father. So there are at least two full pages on this form that could be done away with if your parents are married.

This form was incredibly challenging to fill out. Without the help of our adoption agency who gave a us a cheat sheet with answers to all the questions or at least telling us what they were asking, I would have had an extremely hard time filling this out. And if you mess up it is doubtful that some nice lady from Immigration would call and tell you. I'm assuming they just throw your file in the bottom of the stack.

Because our wonderful and incredibly helpful adoption agency, Dillon International, puts together these cheat sheets for their clients, this form was manageable. But if I'm having trouble understanding questions on a form I have to think that everyone else is too? Plus English is my first (and only) language. I can't imagine how extremely daunting this would be for someone who is not used to filling out forms and has English as a second language.

Also, because it is me I didn't just take Dillon's word on what to fill out but looked into it myself. There are at least 2 different forms the US website on adopted children tell you to fill out. The other one was, I believe, made null because of the Child Citizen Act 2000, which grants citizenship to foreign born children who are adopted by US citizens at the time the adoption is final or if the child comes into the US on a different kind of Visa then the one Ike came in on.

The form that we were required to fill out cost $420! That's not even to mention the other $100's of dollars that I've already given the US government for his immigration.

Since I've already touched on the Child Citizen Act 2000, this Act (which I have read several times) references paragraphs within the Act that, to my knowledge, do not exist. Maybe it was scanned into the internet wrong, but I could not find them. I printed the Act off to send in for his Certificate of Citizenship and for his passport just incase I get someone who has never done a foreign born adopted child. I feel I must do research for these people because it has been my experience that they will not take any extra time to learn something new about their job.

That was really harsh. I think the reason I feel that way is that when we were in the application process for this adoption, INS got our names wrong. Luke's last name is hyphenated and I have my maiden name. The approved form we got back in the mail that allowed us to adopt an 'unknown child' had a made up name on it that somewhat resembled ours. I tried to call, which told me to email. The email bounced back saying I needed to call. I finally talked to a person who said I needed to email. He kept actually reading a written statement to me that said the same thing no matter what I asked. So, I did what anyone would do and drove down to the INS office. They tried not to let me in because I didn't have an appointment. How was I supposed to make an appointment if I can't get through because I don't have a "number" because it is an unknown child and they don't give you a case number until you know the child you are trying to adopt. Finally, I realized that other people were getting in using their bar number. So I told them I was an attorney, here is my bar number, and I got in!!! What do other people do? They just let me in because I was an attorney and attorney's don't need appointments because they go in to represent their clients. I will say that woman that helped me straighten out the name thing was extremely nice.

Also the Lady that helped my get Ike's Certificate of Foreign birth actually called me and told me it went through. She was great.

So as a whole, the PEOPLE have been extremely helpful. The agencies have not been and have backwards rules and procedures.

Lets talk about getting Ike's social security number. I'm very lucky because I was able to get an actual appointment at our office instead of sitting there for hours. I went to get his SSN before he was legally adopted so we did not have an Adoption Decree. The poor girl that was helping me could not get the system to understand why he had no parent on his birth certificate. I was like, "well, he is an orphan. Which means he has no parents until we adopt him. Then we will be his parents." They kept saying, "yes, but someone had to give birth to him." How is is so hard to understand that if his biological mother was on the birth certificate he probably would not have been in the predicament that led to him actually being adopted. And now, even through he is legally a US citizen, deemed so by the ambiguous Child Citizen Act 2000, I still can't get the Social Security Administration to change his number to reflect a citizen instead of a permanent resident.

Probably all of this is a lot more frustrating to me than other people who may not care. It just makes me mad that this child is my child. My child as if I've given birth to him according to the courts, yet he is still going to forever be a "naturalized citizen" and not a 'birth' citizen. He will have to 'prove' his citizenship with this Certificate because he is foreign born (this may be the case with foreign born nationals too?) He will always be, under current law, an immigrant even though both his parents are US citizens-born and raised.

If you read my previous cut and paste post you would have read that there is on legislation that will make adopted children equal to biological children under law. This is on the back burner for most politicians because of other things they deem more serious and may be and probably are. To my knowledge, the only ones who care are the ones that have an adopted child in their family. I guess to to other people its not that big of a deal.

Also, I want to add that I would do this all over again. And that the paperwork is not bad when you have an agency to help you. I make things way more difficult because I research things to death and expect things from the US agencies immediately instead of waiting, which is, I'm sure, why I have so many issues :)