Assistance needed....

Before I get to the "assistance needed" part, I want to make all of you aware of the fact that this week Monday and Tuesday is Carnival in Haiti. It will end on Wednesday in form of Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of the lent season in the Catholic religion.

Thus, don't expect much work progress this week. Even if somebody was to try to work, streets are closed and traffic is stopped during processions of carnival celebrators. A couple of weeks ago, there was "carnival practice" and it was almost impossible to get from point A to point B in Port au Prince.

Okay, now to the Assistance Needed Part:

I was hoping that families who are adopting from France, the Netherlands, and Canada (specifically) could tell me about their immigration laws pertaining to adopted children. Do your children arrive on a visa? How do they get citizenship?

In the U.S., two types of visas are issued to adopted children, one is the IR3 visa that gives the adopted child automatic citizenship upon entry into the U.S.

The other types of visa is the IR4 visa that allows a child to enter the U.S. as a "permanent resident alien". Adoptive parents have to do what is called a "readoption" (a process that differs greatly between the different 50 U.S. states - varying from filling out a form and attaching the foreign adoption decree to having to basically go through another adoption again at great expens). Once the "readoption" is done, the adoptive family has to formally apply for U.S. citizenship from US Immigration. Without families taking these steps, their children remain citizens of their country of origin and remain on an immigrant visa.

Many families do not go through the readoption process which can potentially result in the deportation of the adopted child under certain circumstance (i.e. if the child is convicted of a felony crime).

IR4 visas are issued, for example, in cases where the adoption was done via proxy (as is the case for many adoptions in Haiti) where the adopting family did not meet the child in person prior to the adoption or where only one parent of two adopting parents met the child prior to the adoption.

How does France, Canada and the Netherlands handle this kind of situation? Thank you very much for your support and emails....