Call to Action - I-600A

When you get involved the process of international adoption, you become way too familiar with all kinds of bureaucracy, federal agencies and names and numbers for documents and forms. It really is a nightmare of paperwork. We navigated it fairly easily thanks to The Attorney's legal skills, but it was a pain. It became even more of a pain when we had to do part of it again due to the increased waiting time for Chinese adoption. We, like many other families in our position, had to renew our 1-600A form. And, unfortunately, we (and those other families) might have to do it again if things continue to slow down. This time, however, the nightmare could be worse because The Hague has changed the rules, so the US has changed the paperwork. Essentially, this means starting almost all over again with part of the process.

Our paperwork has been in China for over two years now. We have been approved by both governments for adoption for over a year. We were approved when the rule change took effect. And we're hoping that we will be allowed to take the slightly easier step of extending our current paperwork if necessary.

This could happen and you can have a voice in it, not just for us, but for the many other families around the country who are in our position. The Joint Council on International Children's Services has been working with USCIS (what used to be INS) to allow families like us to be grandfathered in to the new rules and let us continue to renew our existing paper work. The following link has 5 easy steps you can do to help. It also includes a link to much more detailed explanations about what this is all about.

http://www.jcics.org/5WaysToHelp.htm

This is not about ending world hunger. Or stopping nuclear weapons. Or fixing our broken economy. Or reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It's about helping families come together - helping children find homes. Seems like a pretty good place to start to me.