International Relative Adoption USA and Canada

[usacanada]

Hello all first of all thank you for taking the time to read my post.

My wife and I live in Seattle,WA Both US Citizens but my wife is also a Canadian citizen.

Our situation My wifes sister who is a canadian citizen residing in Vancouver BC was diagnosed with brain cancer 3 years ago. When she was first diagnosed she made it known to the family that she wants my wife and myself to adopt her daugther. Through a miraculous will to live she has lasted 3 years. The doctor recently told her that he believes she has anywhere between 6 weeks and 6 months left on this earth. So now the time has come for us to begin thinking about this adoption. Her daughter is 8 years old and is happy that she will be living with us but of course sad that it is happening under the current circumstances. Everyone in the family agrees and wants this to. So no one will be contesting the adoption. The father passed years ago so he is not in the picture.

So we have talked to EVERYONE the childrens ministry in British Columbia, various immigration and adoption attorneys, and adoption agencies both in the Seattle and in Vancouver. And unfortunately every single answer I had was something similar to " I am so sorry but I do not know what to tell you..." The BC ministry gave us the run around.
So this brings me to 2 questions.

1. I have done alot of research over the last couple weeks only to find that it is hard to adopt a canadian citzen through an international adoption. Is there ANYONE out there that has done this before? Whether it was a relative or an orphan.

2. I have been told that from the immigration stand point even though soon this girl will no longer have a mother, it is actually harder to adopt a relative and bring her through immigration. Is this true?

Last is there any advice that any one can give me as far as a place to start goes. Currently our plan is this on Monday we plan on talking with a family law attorney in BC in efforts to draw up and apply for joint custody of the child ( My wife and her mother). Just so that when her mom does pass away we are not worried about someone taking her out of the home or something. I am a little skeptical of doing this because I do not know if this will hinder or delay our adoption process by my wife already having legal custody of the child.

Thanks again sorry for the long note, but any advice you can give would be greately appreciated.

 

[aspenashes]

Hague Convention information

My husband and I live in Oregon and are also trying to adopt a relative from Canada. We have run into the same problem of trying to get answers from people. Our situation is a little different, as the child we are trying to adopt is already in care of the ministry and also, neither of us are Canadian citizens. What I do know is that international adoptions, even relative adoptions are governed by the Hague convention, and Canada and the United States are both signers of this treaty. Which means, there is alot of paperwork involved for immigration on both sides. It also means a homestudy would need to be done. We are working with WACAP (wacap.org), which is an adoption agency in Renton.

I don't know if there is a different way of going about this for you two, since your wife is also a Canadian citizen, but it wouldn't hurt to contact WACAP. MaryAnn Curran is the person that I would contact there. I see that you have already contacted some agencies, so I don't know if this would be helpful, but we had to contact many agencies before we found WACAP who was not only willing to help us, but was also working with another US couple adopting from Canada. They may not have the answers regarding how to actually proceed with custody/adoption, but they can help you get all of your paperwork/homestudy/immigration done on the US end so that you are "approved" to adopt. This paperwork can take around 6 months, so I would definitely get started on it right away even if you don't know how it is all actually going to pan out.

 

[aspenashes]

Also, here is a helpful site regarding adoptions from Canada to the US. adoption.state.gov/country/canada.html

 

[usacanada]

My husband and I live in Oregon and are also trying to adopt a relative from Canada. We have run into the same problem of trying to get answers from people. Our situation is a little different, as the child we are trying to adopt is already in care of the ministry and also, neither of us are Canadian citizens. What I do know is that international adoptions, even relative adoptions are governed by the Hague convention, and Canada and the United States are both signers of this treaty. Which means, there is alot of paperwork involved for immigration on both sides. It also means a homestudy would need to be done. We are working with WACAP (wacap.org), which is an adoption agency in Renton.

I don't know if there is a different way of going about this for you two, since your wife is also a Canadian citizen, but it wouldn't hurt to contact WACAP. MaryAnn Curran is the person that I would contact there. I see that you have already contacted some agencies, so I don't know if this would be helpful, but we had to contact many agencies before we found WACAP who was not only willing to help us, but was also working with another US couple adopting from Canada. They may not have the answers regarding how to actually proceed with custody/adoption, but they can help you get all of your paperwork/homestudy/immigration done on the US end so that you are "approved" to adopt. This paperwork can take around 6 months, so I would definitely get started on it right away even if you don't know how it is all actually going to pan out.

Thanks good info. I did talk to MaryAnn Curran recently and she is very knolwedgeable. So she has put us in contact with someone who can do a home study and get some paperwork started from here. Things are going to be hectic I believe. Since originally writing this my wife's sister has passed on. My wife, myself and the grandmother went to court and obtained joint custody of the kid. This was just so that the ministry would not come in and scoop her up in the mean time. So now will see how things will pan out from this point. I will post an update in a couple of months with what all we have proceeded with.

Thanks for the info and the websites.