Ugandan adoption falling through?

[Dandelionkid]

I feel so bad for a couple we know of. They have three adopted kids so are well versed in adoption (1 was international). The dad went to Uganda 5 months ago expecting to pick-up two more kids, thought it would take 2 weeks and he is still there because the Canadian gov't denied the kids access to Canada. He is still there while his family struggles without him here, 5 months later. THe gov't of Canada said if they lived there for 3 years they could try again then. The family may be doing this if, at the end of this guys paternity leave, no headway has been made. Anyone know why this would happen last minute? What can I do to help?

[Tigerchild]

Do you know this couple intimately, or do you *just* "know of" them?

Because there seems to be a lot of information missing.

First, international vs. domestic adoption is very different. Country to country laws are different, and laws and policies change (sometimes rapidly) over time. So being the adoptive parents of three kids doesn't necessarily mean that these folks are well versied in Ugandan-to-Canadian adoption, especially if they don't have good, up-to-date legal counsel on both sides of the equation.

It is kind of odd that someone would expect to just go to Uganda and pick up a couple of kids in a couple of weeks (unless they got a call and had specifically arranged this, I'm going to assume this is what happened?) without knowing that their ducks were in a row with the Canadian immigration authority. Honestly, this kind of sounds on the surface like a situation where this family may have been scammed or been the victims of either a really incompetant adoption service or legal counsel (especially if they don't know why things are being held up).

I would say that paperwork SNAFUS, fraud, a change in administrators, a change in Ugandan legal adoption policies, miscommunication, misplaced or incorrectly filled out paperwork, ect.--those could all cause problems that seem to be last minute (because they're not caught until the family thinks they're ready to move on to the next step). That really sucks. I don't know what an outside person could do, unless it were to contribute to the family being able to hire a real immigration and international adoption attorney or to help them get their case publicized to the powers that be that might be able to influence things (such as, in the US, one's Congresspeople). And I would think moral/prayerful/thoughtful support would be welcome too. Maybe a second opinion from another lawyer independent of any agency or current lawyer who can look over the paperwork and perhaps see what went wrong?

[tiffani]

I know/know of this family, and it is actually the Canadian government who is holding them up. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they knew they might run into trouble when he went over to Uganda, but Canada was not issuing visas to Ugandan children when he decided to travel there, and a few families had already had visas denied. I don't mean to say that in a negative way, but there are a few Canadian families stuck in the same boat, and his choice to go to Uganda to be with the kids they were adopting rather than stay home until Canada starts issuing visas again was that family's personal decision. I'm assuming they thought they might have a different outcome, or that the situation would be resolved soon, but they were well aware that things were not running smoothly when he left, it wasn't really a shock, or shouldn't have been anyway. I have a very good friend who has been back and forth a few times, I know another family who is waiting it out at home until this mess gets cleared up. Every family is going to handle it differently. I am often tempted to jump on a plane and wait it out there, but can't, for various reasons -- if our life moves in that direction before visas start rolling again, we might head over, we'll see... we haven't met our kids yet, and I'm not sure if that family had or not. Our kids are unaware of us at this point, and in good hands, so we wait at home until we can go get them.

Everyone involved in Ugandan adoption is hoping, praying, and frantically looking for ways to get this mess settled. It is the governments of Canada and more recently, the US who are going waaaaaaay above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that legal guardianships in Uganda are, in fact, legal. Things move a little slower over there, so they are having a hard time getting the answers they are looking for, and I suspect are possibly sorry they ever started this mess in the first place, as the family who has been stuck the longest is coming up on a year... What happened initially to start this chain of events is that Canadian immigration listened to someone who was spouting their *opinion* about legal guardianships, and a cascade of stalled bureaucracy has been the result. From the outside, it looks like perhaps there has been some scandal or unethical goings on, but nothing could be further from the truth, and this was a can of worms that did NOT need to be opened! we are all expecting it to be resolved soon. yes, I used the 's' word.

[tiffani]

Originally Posted by Dandelionkid

What can I do to help?

you can contact your MP on their behalf, if you want, or you can find out who their MP is and contact them, but my understanding is that it is being investigated at the highest levels of Canadian immigration, and should be resolved soon. If you're local to this family, you could bring meals to the mom and kids at home, or other things like that. He's very lucky he has paternity leave he can use for this. hooray for canadian parental leave laws!