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Klobuchar Announces Travel Extension for Families with Pending Adoptions in Nepal

Families involved with adoptions will benefit from 60-day extension

October 21, 2010

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar announced today that the governments of Nepal and the United States have reached an agreement to extend the 60-day travel authorization period to 120 days for families with pending U.S. adoptions in Nepal. The Nepal Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare gave written confirmation that it will extend for an additional 60 days the current 60-day time period that parents are given to complete an adoption that has been approved by the Government of Nepal.

“Parents from Minnesota and across the nation have waited too long to see their adopted children,” Klobuchar said. “This extension is a necessary step in ensuring that families with pending adoptions are allowed to travel to Nepal to bring their children home safely once their adoptions have been finalized.”

This extension would give approximately 80 U.S. adoptive families with pending adoptions in Nepal – including three Minnesota families and one family that previously lived in Minnesota – additional time to travel to Nepal as soon as their cases are completed by the U.S. government.

In August, the State Department announced the indefinite suspension of the processing of new adoption cases from Nepal where children have been allegedly abandoned due to unreliable abandonment documents. Following this announcement, Klobuchar sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging their departments to work closely with the Nepalese government to swiftly complete pending U.S. adoptions in Nepal. The State Department is currently working with the Department of Homeland Security to verify the abandonment status of each orphan.  

Klobuchar also spoke with Secretary Napolitano earlier this month about the status of the investigations that are being completed by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services staff in New Delhi. Minnesota has the highest per-capita international adoption rate of any state.

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