Why
consider international adoption?
It's
simple: so many children need a place to call home. So many people want
a child to love!
There are an
estimated 523,000 children in foster care in the United States, and
more than 119,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. Globally there are
millions of children orphaned, languishing in poverty,
orphanages or living on the streets.
American citizens are seeking to adopt children from abroad in ever
increasing numbers. Each year thousands of children
come to the United States from foreign countries, either adopted abroad
by U.S. citizens or as potential adoptees. In 2006
the USCIS issued 20,679 immigrant visas to children
adopted abroad by citizens of the US.
Why are children relinquished
by their birth family?
In
foreign countries (and in the United States) high poverty rates, high
fertility and live birth rates, unemployment, lack of education and
other factors most frequently lead to relinquishment. These reasons,
combined with cultural stigmas, the lack of state-funded social service
programs, family protection policies and a lack of economic resources
provided by the State all contribute to a situation where families are
forced to placed their children for adoption.
It is in the child’s best
interest that, whenever possible, a child remain with their birth
families, followed by adoption within their own country. Poverty should
not be the sole reason someone chooses to place a child for adoption,
and in most cases it is not, as evidenced by the fact that the vast
majority of families who live in poverty do not place their children
for adoption. Complex pressures from both inside and outside the family
virtually always contribute to the decision.
A Love Beyond Borders offers assistance to both
individuals/couples seeking to become parents and children in need of
parents, and brings the two together; children needing a home and
people wanting a child to love. The first question is how to get
started.
Who can adopt? 
A Love Beyond Borders
provides adoption services to qualified singles and married couples,
without regard to race, creed, sexual orientation (within the scope of
international law), religion or marital status.
Most foreign adoption
programs have flexible guidelines as determined in the foreign country,
but sometimes an adoption agency itself sets tighter criteria for
adoptive parents. That is one reason for the discrepancy of
requirements which a prospective adoptive parent may find from agency
to agency.
At A Love Beyond Borders we
provide programs that meet the guidelines set forth by the foreign
country, which often include single men (although with limited options)
and single women, older parents, and families with a large number of
children already in the home.
