Recently in Adoption News Category

This just in from blogger Jeff Katz of the Huffington Post:

The simple fact is that it is virtually impossible to adopt a foster child across state lines in the United States.

In the most recent year for which we have data, states reported that only 71 children in the entire country were adopted from foster care across state lines by non-relatives.

Why is interstate adoption so rare? The primary reason is that we do not have a national adoption system. Instead, we have 50 different child welfare systems, each with its own process for adoption eligibility, recruitment, approval, and training.

Even worse, our current system has created profound disincentives for states to facilitate and support adoptions across state lines.

It is a national scandal that 25,000 children age out of foster care each year while willing adoptive parents are ignored because they are in the wrong state or even the wrong county. It shouldn't be harder for a New Jersey family to adopt a child from Manhattan than Moscow. We must change the incentives in our adoption system so that everyone wins when a hurt child finds a forever family.

Check out the complete post here.

Look who's back! Was it adoption for love? Child trafficking via surrogacy? Or something else? The bizarre case of birdman Stephen Melinger is back in the news, this time in a New York Times article on the perils and pitfalls of surrogacy. Do check out this story in the Times, but just remember from Melinger to womb outsourcing, snowflake adoptions and sperm donor introductions for lesbians, this blog gave you the scoop first.

An interesting article about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [FCPA] made me think about international adoption agencies and their criminal liability under this federal law. According to the article FCPA, which was enacted in 1977, prohibits bribery of foreign officials. The authors offer this sage advice:

In this climate of increased enforcement, it is imperative that firms doing business in foreign markets, both currently and in the future, become familiar with the FCPA. Both the anti-bribery and books-and-records provisions present significant issues for any company doing business abroad.

In general terms, the FCPA's anti-bribery provisions prohibit companies and individuals from making payments -- or offering or promising to pay money or anything of value -- to any foreign official with the purpose of inducing the recipient to misuse his official position by directing business to or maintaining business with the payor. The anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA apply to . . . any citizen, national or resident of the United States; any entity organized under the laws of any state or U.S. territory; U.S. persons who commit acts of bribery outside of the U.S.; . . . and U.S. and foreign agents of any of these persons or entities.

Hmmmmm. This law sounds like it was MADE for the international adoption oligarchy and, in a serious note of caution for all would-be adoptive parents, those unwittingly caught in its grasp. Let's read on:

To create FCPA liability, the purpose of the payment or promise in question must have been to induce a foreign official to misuse his position. Significantly, however, the FCPA does not require the payment to actually succeed in its purpose. Companies and individuals that violate the FCPA's anti-bribery provisions are subject to impositions of fines and orders for forfeiture of assets derived from the corrupt activity.

In addition to fines and asset forfeitures, an individual convicted for violation of the anti-bribery provisions may be sentenced to prison term of up to five years.

Now that should wake you up! One international adoption agency distributed this memo entitled "Gifts for Russia" in which they clearly state (as if anyone was wondering): "These are gifts, not bribes. Gifts are part of the Russian way of doing business. With the gifts, you are recognizing the status of the people you are dealing with, and showing your appreciation for the assistance that they are giving you."

Appreciation for the assistance that they are giving you. Solid words, but sound legal advice?

Just remember, as World Child, Inc. warned clients in their agency-parent Memo of Understanding, "your American dollars are very much in demand!" "We suggest you bring a variety of bills, including approximately twenty bills each of $1s, $5s, $10s, $20s, and $50s. The rest can be $100 dollar bills. Bills that are over ten years old, are very wrinkled, or are torn or written upon, will not be acceptable." Acceptable to who?

According to the article:

Although it is clear that the FCPA prohibits bribing foreign officials or their representatives, some less obvious activities may constitute violations of the FCPA as well. Any company doing business abroad should be aware of the following examples of possible violations of the FCPA, particularly in view of the recent increase in enforcement:

• Excessive gift giving or entertaining foreign officials or their representatives.
  
• Allowing foreign officials or their staff to use company facilities for any purpose other than to demonstrate, promote or explain the services that the company provides.
  
• Employing a consultant or agent that has connections to a foreign government or agency, for the purpose of influencing that government's or agency's decisions.
  
• Passing money through an agent or consultant to a foreign official to obtain business or secure an advantage, including consulting or management contracts, or securing certain action on legislation, regulations, or other government activity.

Now I'm sure readers will let me know whether they've heard of anything even remotely similar to these (ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES) in the routine conduct of the business of international adoption. I suggest that if anything you've read here reminds you of anything you've personally experienced, witnessed or directed, call a lawyer, call the FBI, and post a comment.

And I thought corrupting international adoption with money was bad. Now we've got to worry about criminal liability for BRIBES?

Before you get too unsettled, just remember the timeless words of FOA (friend of adoption) Debbie Spivack, writing on the Focus on Adoption listserve in defense of Jeanne Smith's Reaching Out Thru International Adoption agency which placed Russian girl Masha Allen with a pedophile adoptor: "fees are for services to ensure the integrity of the process and keep corruption away." Thank goodness! That'll make a stunning defense to felony criminal charges. With Spivack as your expert witness, even the most vile international adoption agency should be able to beat this rap.

And with all this in mind, the Foreign CORRUPT Practices Act need not worry anyone, least of all internationally adopting parents with crisp one hundred dollar bills stuffed in their suitcases.

Just one more example of how individuals intent on exploiting children are leveraging technology: maybe it was the bird in his pocket or his tattered clothes which were covered with avian feces, but when a 58 year old man arrived at an Indianapolis hospital to pick up his twin medically fragile girls, nurses were concerned that he did not seem to know how to care for the children and planned to drive them back to New Jersey by himself.

The girls, Karen and Kathy Melinger, were born in 2005 from a South Carolina surrogate using a sperm donor and delivered in an Indiana hospital at the direction of an attorney who brokered the arrangement over the Internet. There was no Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) because the so-called father, who had to adopt the girls, was temporarily living in Indiana waiting for the adoption to finalize before moving back to New Jersey.

Stephen Melinger is a single man and teacher’s aid who reportedly is not allowed to be in a classroom alone with students. The adoption was approved in 2006 in a rural Indiana court where the surrogate's attorney, Steven C. Litz (who $olicit$ client$ and $urrogate mother$ on the Internet) completed over 20 adoption$ before the $ame judge in the la$t $everal year$.

Now, four years later, Indiana's highest court reversed a lower court ruling that let the New Jersey man adopt the twin girls. The Indiana Supreme Court unanimously said a county court shouldn't have granted the adoption without input from New Jersey officials.

But it let Melinger retain custody of the girls, born in April 2005, until the matter is settled. The ruling means New Jersey child welfare authorities now must assess whether Melinger, who is in his 60s, can provide a safe and stable home for the girls.

The Indianapolis Star repeatedly fought for information about this case and kept up public pressure for years. Their coverage of this story is excellent.

Chinese adoption = human trafficking inside and outside the country according to the NYTimes Link

Welcome to the Dark Side of International Adoption as MotherJones exposes US-India child trafficking corruption Link

Adoption in the U.S. the book! Excellent resource about adoption & its aftermath, law, policy and social aspects @ Link

A fascinating journal article by Professors Daniel Pollack and Mary Eschelbach Hansen:

The anti-discrimination law governing placement of children in foster care and adoption was intended to speed the adoption of Black children who could not be reunited with their families of origin. Only recently have two states been fined for violating this decade-old law. Based on our analysis of administrative data collected by the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we conclude that more vigorous enforcement of the anti-discrimination law in adoption could result in significant gains to Black children. We find that Black children spend more time as legal orphans than children of other races and that transracial placement speeds their adoptions.

Download the entire paper here

National Council for Adoption denounces Evan B. Donaldson's call for open adoption records in unyielding report Link

A federal solution to our international adoption child trafficking mess? This article examines the issues Link

FL Bar joins fight against state's ban on adoptions by gays with fed amicus brief before 3rd circuit COA Link

Last month, Foreign Policy Magazine ran a hard-hitting expose entitled The Lie We Love. It's premise: "Foreign adoption seems like the perfect solution to a heartbreaking imbalance: Poor countries have babies in need of homes, and rich countries have homes in need of babies. Unfortunately, those little orphaned bundles of joy may not be orphans at all."

Finally some truth in advertising. Here's reporter E.J. Graff on the international orphan myth: