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| International Adoptions |
January 31, 2007 |
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Dear Friends,
Andrew and Connie Johnson wrote to me last May about their efforts to adopt a child from China. International adoptions take awhile and they are taking longer now than they used to. One of the steps to adopt a child from overseas is filling out a form with the Department of Homeland Security called an I-171H. This application includes finger prints, a background check and so forth. The fee is over five hundred dollars.
Read the Press Release
The problem is that the form and the background check are only valid for 18 months. If it takes longer than 18 months to get through the adoption process, families have to file the paperwork again and pay the fee a second time. With adoptions taking longer these days -- especially from China where over 7,900 children came from last year -- more and more families are having to do the paperwork twice.
That didn`t make a lot of sense. So, I introduced a bill late in the last Congress that would make the paperwork valid for two years. Last week, I reintroduced the bill and we will try to move it through the House this year.
I read my mail and some of the best ideas for things that just need to get fixed come from constituents who are having problems like the one the Johnson`s faced. Fixing it just seems like the right thing to do.
Wish you were here,
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