Posted on 09/17/2005 12:26:39 PM PDT by TankerKC
This is a long read which is an update from a thread I wrote in January 2004. Please read, if you can help.
Family Adoption: Did We Do the Right Thing? (Freeper Advice Requested)
Being a Conservative goes beyond posting to FreeRepublic. Or, it should. So, when a family member got into some legal trouble and couldn’t care for her child, my wife and I stepped in.
Not the first time.
When you come from a family with six kids, chances are that one may not turn out to be a productive member of society. My mom raised six of us on her own. She now has grown children, five of whom are functioning members of society including a military officer, three cops and a homemaker (and former cop).
The sixth, and youngest, has been in and out of trouble since she was in the sixth grade—incidentally the last year she regularly attended school. She had her first child when she was 15 and her second when she was 19.
Over the years the level of trouble she got into escalated. She started with truancy, fighting, and drinking. Soon it was drugs along with prostitution to pay for it. She finally developed a heroin habit and resorted to armed robbery for funds.
She was caught and arrested during a robbery of a diner. Her two children, who had accompanied her during her heroin binges and crime sprees, were taken into state custody. Of course, with 5 aunts and uncles, the kids had a home to go to. My brother took the kids into his home. Since the kids were wards of the state, my brother was essentially taking care of the kids for the State of California—it seems that is one way to work the situation. Because he was taking care of the “state’s kids”, he was given $600 a month and Medi-Cal health insurance.
A Third Child
Meanwhile, the children’s mom was in and out of prison, rehab, and parole, finally ending up with several warrants out for her arrest and strung out on heroin yet again. In February of 2000 she gave birth to a daughter. Since she was high and wanted, she slipped across the border to Tijuana, Mexico to have the baby. She was afraid that if she gave birth in a US hospital that she would be turned in. Once the baby was born, she slipped back across the border, never documenting the birth of her new child..
She spent the next eleven months living in cheap motels and scoring drugs anyway that she could. The gig was up when she got caught shop lifting and she was off to prison again.
My brother still had her older kids and had since had a child of his own with Down’s Syndrome, so he couldn’t take another child—particularly one born hooked on heroin.
Poor Timing
My wife and I already had four children. All were of school age. I was in the second month of a 1 year deployment to Honduras and my wife worked in the cash office at a local discount store. The timing was all wrong, but when she asked our four older kids about bringing the child to live with us, the just asked how soon we could get her to Alabama.
In order to take the child, my wife would need to quit her job. Due to my deployment, she was already functioning as single parent, and now her hands would really be full. We needed the money from her job, but our new baby would need some special help.
Even though our family income was going to go down, we did not want to take money from the state to care for a family member. We could have easily let the child be a ward of the state and taken cash and health insurance. But, we didn’t think is was a state responsibility. It was a family responsibility. Besides, we’d get her on our insurance and claim her as a dependent on our taxes. It would all work out—or so we thought.
She has no Birth Certificate?
Our new baby was born under less that perfect circumstances. She was born sick, in a foreign country, to a mother who was wanted by the law. Her birth was not registered or documented in anyway. We immediately got (and paid) an adoption lawyer so that we could get legal custody and progress through the adoption process. We thought that having legal custody would streamline the process.
Nothing could make this messy process smooth. It took months just to get a custody hearing. Meanwhile we paid for her doctor visits. Once we had legal custody, we thought we could claim her on our taxes and add her to our health plan. But Mr. Bureaucracy says, “Not so fast there!”
Without a birth certificate, there will be no Social Security Number. We found this to be true no matter how many other acceptable forms of identification are listed on the SS website. How about a form from the INS attesting to her citizenship? No! Can we get a individual taxpayer id number (ITIN), you know the number that illegal aliens can get so that they can pay there taxes? No!
Without a SSN or ITIN, you can’t claim a child on your taxes.
Or, get the $600 “Bush” child tax rebate.
Or, claim your adoption credit.
Or, get your DoD adoption allowance.
Three Years (It has been 4 1/2 years now)
So, we have been trying to get some documentation for this child for nearly three years. My wife has spent hours waiting in Social Security, Internal Revenue, and INS offices only to run into road blocks at every turn. We have, called, mailed, and emailed asking for and proving information to no avail.
That was all written in Jan of 2004. You can read the original thread here.
We finally did get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) for child early in 2005!
We still couldn’t get a SSN without proof of citizenship. We sent in a Form N-600 as advised by the INS. My wife was told that the form would get us an interview with INS (now the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, or USCIS). We filled out the form and paid the fee as listed on the form. The form was eventually retuned, because, apparently, the prescribed fee listed on the form was changed and we owed even more ($240 in total). After we paid the fee (Oct 2004), we got back a form letter saying that they had received the N-600 and that we could not contact them for a minimum of one year while they processed it.
Well, we got back the form today (after 11 months) and it says, “NAME is not a legal permanent resident, and there are no petitions pending on her behalf; therefore your Application for Certificate of Citizenship is hereby denied.”
We are at a loss, and have been financially drained. No one in the federal bureaucracy can tell us what we should do next. We have a child, that we have legally adopted, but she is an illegal alien. Does that make any sense? Is there anyone out there who knows what to do?
I disagree.
My legal opinion, for what it's worth, is you should follow the law.
Go to Mexico, obtain a birth certificate.. It will be cheaper than all the funds you spent and time wasted to create something stateside..
Tanker, which documents do you have? Do you have the little alien card with the pic on it? What makes you believe you have adopted this child without a birth certificate with your names on it?
Could you get a DNA sample from your sister and then from the child to prove that the child is hers and that her birth mother is a U.S. citizen?
That's right (speaking from having waded through a few sticky foreign adoptions myself...) but what is your proof?
I think we should try this. Tanker, what do you think?
You definitely need to talk with your Congressperson or Seantor. They should have an office possibly in a nearby town if not in your town. And if any are up for re-election next year, their staff will help to get your vote. A friend's son had a similar problem trying to get his German wife and baby (born in England) back to the states. My friend worked through her congressperson to get the wife and child here.
We have the adoption decree and the "Certificate of Foreign Birth."
She is legally adopted.
Can you have a DNA test done to prove that she is your sister's biological child? Since your sister is, and always has been, a US citizen, I would think that would be all it takes, but I'm just talking out of my ass here.
Best of luck!
God Bless you and your family Tanker.
Dog Gone is correct about citizenship. Contact your Senator/Rep.
Stay in touch...
Thanks
I think that is a good idea....I'm taking in all of the advice I'm getting here and will come up with a plan of action.
All I can offer is my prayers and my thanks for trying so hard to rescue this child.....God Bless you and all of your family....
My proof is the adoption decree, but is it possible that Alabama jumped the gun and shouldn't have completed the adoption? It is a done deal now.
But first, tell me more about the certificate of foreign birth. Parental names on it?
LOL, yes it is. More later, at work and getting too busy to post for awhile...
But you'll probably get the birth certificate. Not to make light of the situation, but my sister and her family have lived in Central America for many years. Sometimes there's no way to get something accomplished without paying the officials to do your bidding (here we'd call it a bribe, there it's a way of life.) It doesn't make the paperwork any less legal, it just get's them working on it faster. Don't look at it as a bribe, just look at it as a remuneration for the official who's expediting your case.
Get her a driver's license? < /sarcasm >
Seriously, sounds like an awful mess. Seems I read recently that there is a way to apply for a new birth certificate for a foreign born child, but that's assuming the birth was registered in the other country. Also, I remember reading that if for some reason a birth isn't registered, no matter how old the child, a sworn affidavit by an individual attending the birth can be adequate documentation to obtain a valid birth certificate, although it is somehow marked to show that it was acquired later, I believe. Again, I don't know how that works in Mexico. I'm sure there are plenty of babies born there that are not documented there either. They must have a legal way of dealing with the problem. Have you looked into that?
I can look into how we would approach this issue if there were such a child in our custody. I work with CPS. Laws vary from state to state, but I would imagine that the procedure for obtaining birth records would be the same. I can look into it if you like.
No advice, but best wishes to you and your family. Prayers that your sister gets her act together someday, too.
Mercy what a mess! I love what you and your family are doing. God bless and good luck. You have this family's prayers.
We don't have advice to offer other than what the others told you here, contacting Congressmen and whatever you do, don't take her across the border. But, we'll do whatever we can for you, including writing letters if you need.
My wife and I will pray for you and your family. Bless you, you're doing good works.
Be sure to get your ping list together and let us know how we can help.
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