Letters to Congress

With the increased wait for referral it has become evident that one of our most important adoption documents will potentially expire before we travel to get our daughter. Remember the cool "approval to bring an orhan into the US" letter that we were so excited to get in the mail back in January? Well it's only good for 18 months. That didn't used to be a problem. Now it might be, so it's been suggested by many that we all write letters to our senators and representatives to get them to extend the expiration so we don't all have to get re-fingerprinted and pay another huge chunk of money to reapply for a new approval letter.

Here's the letter that I wrote to send to my Ohio representative and senators:

April 18, 2006

The Honorable Mike DeWine
37 W. Broad St., Ste. 300
Columbus, OH 43215

Subject: Foreign adoption
Request: Please help extend expiration date of USCIS form I-171H

Dear Senator DeWine,

This letter is to voice my concern over the expiration timing of form I-171H (Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition) and the fingerprints associated with this approval process.

Currently, adoptive parents are required to resubmit to fingerprinting after 15 months, and resubmit the entire application after 18 months from date of initial approval. There is significant cost and burden time associated with both of these steps.

In recent months it has become clear that processing time for international adoption, from China specifically, will possibly exceed the 18 month expiration window. In the near future there will likely be an extraordinary number of families needing to reprocess paperwork if there are no changes to the current expiration dates.

Increasing the period of validity of this document to at least 24 months (preferably 36 months) would benefit both the adoptive families and the USCIS offices that are required to process numerous applications per year.

We realize your time is limited so we appreciate any attention you can give to this issue and any results you may be able to prompt on our behalf.

Sincerely,

my name

Any of our family or friends are more than welcome to copy this letter or write your own to your representatives to help all the adoptive parents plead their case :-)

You can find contact info for your state's people by going to www.congress.org

Thanks!!