International adoptions plummeted to a 30-year low for U.S. citizens last year, with further declines expected. But some see the trend as an opportunity to help children remain in their home countries.
The U.S. State Department released its Annual Report on Intercountry Adoptions in March. Between October 2013 and September 2014, officials granted 6,441 immigrant visas to children adopted abroad, the lowest level since 1984. A tidal wave of international adoptions started in the late 1990s and reached its peak in 2004, with almost 23,000 children adopted internationally that year. After a slow decline, adoptions began plummeting in 2009 and are expected to continue to fall due to other countries’ fluctuating policies toward intercountry adoption. Political and social change can halt adoptions—sometimes overnight—that have been in process for years.
China, Russia, and Ethiopia are the top three countries Americans have adopted from during the last six years.
Adoptions from China totaled 2,040 last year, down 96 percent from a peak of almost 14,500 children in 2005. The decline is mostly attributed to the Chinese government promoting domestic adoption over the last few years, the report said. Nationalist sentiment has also fed the trend. Today, Americans can expect to stand in line for at least eight years to be matched with a healthy baby, according to a representative from Chinese Children Adoption International. The wait is so long, the organization has stopped taking applications for healthy children and instead focuses on placing special-needs children.
On Jan. 1, 2013, Russia abruptly instituted a federal law banning the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens. The policy change left in legal limbo hundreds of children already in the adoption process, including many who had already met their new parents. Officials granted only two immigrant visas to Russian children adopted by Americans in 2014, down from about 9,400 in 2004. Russia’s move was widely reported to be retaliation for a law U.S. President Barack Obama signed a few weeks earlier, imposing travel and financial restrictions on human rights abusers in Russia.
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