From the Consulate - Part Two
To start with, let me say I've had a couple of people tell me that they've been told that the State Department is now getting involved with things regarding the wait. I haven't reported this because, frankly, our State Department can't tell the CCAA to speed up. All they can really do is insist on enough transparency that they can feel comfortable with the fact that babies are legal orphans and eligible to come into the U.S. on whatever Visa it is they will come in on. It does appear that they are acting on our behalf and asking questions though. So, on to the rest of the email.
The rest of the email goes on to say that an official with the Consular Section agreed to engage the CCAA on the supposed points of discrimination listed above, as well as the timeline issue.
This part is a bit odd to me. The consular official says that he does not get the idea that the CCAA is creating the wait on purpose, and then goes on to say that the "boy glut" could not be helped by them slowing down adoptions so he doesn't think they are slowing it down on purpose.
My personal input here is that there could be other reasons the CCAA would slow things down on purpose, and it seems odd to me that it is phrased this way.
The consular official says they have heard from both agencies and potential parents about their concerns with the slowdown. He says that the CCAA says it is due to less babies being available for intercountry adoption.
And, I'm going to do an exact quote of the next part.
Visa issuances for the first half of the fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2005 - March 31, 2006) were down by about 9% when compared to the same period last year; this has nothing to do with issuance/refual rates, but rather, w/ a decline in the raw numbers. They have not seen declines in CCAA-approved handicapped PAPs or mixed-race couples, and in fact they have handled at least three cases in the past year in which both United States citizens PAPs were African-American.-------------- That's it. I think that this tells us, once and for all, that the CCAA is sending out less referrals this year than they were last year. I've been wanting to see quarterly numbers from the state department, this is close enough. I'm going to think on this for a bit before I do another post with my conclusions based on this email.
posted by RumorQueen at 4/12/2006 02:01:00 PM
13 Comments:
Interesting. I'm glad someone is asking the CCAA some questions, and that we are getting a few answers.
Here's what I think has happened: The CCAA got slammed with dossiers last spring. They had already told the SWIs to send child files for XX number of babies, based on past history. So when there was an influx of parent dossiers, their baby numbers were off. This can't be rectified immediately as it takes months to create paperwork on the babies. So right now we're caught in that window of waiting for more babies to be made available, and the matching has slowed b/c there just aren't baby files sitting there to be matched.
As to whether the CCAA is "intentionally" slowing the wait time.....here's what I think. I think the rise in parent dossiers was unexpected, and the lack of paper-ready babies just a natural consequence of that unexpected turn of events. So in that sense, I see no "intentional" slowdown. HOWEVER, as to the future, I also don't see the CCAA going back to a 6 month wait time once they get more paper-ready babies to match. In other words, imo, no catching up to the old time frames. My guess is that they have realized there is a down side to being that efficient, and they don't want to be the obvious first choice of country for all parents adopting internationally. It's too hard to keep up that pace if the numbers keep rising. So "intentional" slow down? Not exactly. But I think perhaps they've lost the motivation to get back to being so fast. Maybe they think if they stay in the 10-12 month range, they'll be more in line with other countries' programs and not be the "go to" choice.
That's my uninformed gut feeling about it all, fwiw. I also don't see it stretching to 24 months either, though. Then no one would choose China, and they can't want that either.
One more thing....seems to me that international adoption is going to be a focus during the Beijing Olympics no matter what. Whether they're adopting out 13,000 babies or 5,000, that story is going to be told.
Since part of the cause of the slowdown is a decline in paper ready babies and we know that it takes many of the smaller, more impoverished, rural orphanages a lot of time and effort to compile the children's dossiers, I wonder if any of the US Charities working in China (China Care or OCDF) would consider expanding their purpose to assist these orphanages in child dossier production. How wonderful would it be to cut down on the amount of time all those little ones wait in orphanages for paperwork to be processed.
Just a thought.
Mary, well said. I share much of those same opinions. Nothing sinister is going on, whatever it is, it is their best effort based on the circumstances and constraints they find themselves with. Things will get moving (eventually), but they won't move as fast as they used to because that pace was just too fast for the process to sustain. It just makes sense, and it matches everything you hear that is from the agencies or the CCAA and still explaines the slow down.
That beijing olympics stuff really scares me, maybe not for my first child ( with a 12 month wait, i'd be getting a referral in feb 07) but for #2 which i hope to paperchase for a year later.
And of course, i feel bad for those who are paperchasing now and who might run up against it...
i wonder when this olympic- related slowdown will start, and when it will end...?
this is all fascinating info, sortof shocking really that we know about it and that the US govt actually cares ( this would never have ocurred to me) thank you for posting it, RQ.
It scares me too, but I chalk it up to "cross that bridge when you come to it". A lot could change between here and there, and this is just rumor and speculation anyway. China today is a world different than Korea in 1988. I'm not saying there is no comparison, but it's not one to one. I'm not borrowing trouble on this one.
Good points, emanual. Makes me feel a bit better, thanks
Does anyone have any idea if the dossiers to China is actually slowing down at this time due to the slowdown and the inability to predict to what extent this will go? The rumors have been circulating now for MONTHS and "worst case scenarios" continue to prove to be close to actuality. I would think that this would be scaring some people off. Just wondering if any agencies are seeing a slowdown from this end as well.
tmtd - I believe that agencies are under strict guidelines from the CCAA to not share how many adoptions they participate in. I don't know if this would preclude them from telling you if the numbers are down or not. Perhaps some of you can ask your agencies if their numbers of paperchasing parents are up or down and see if you get an answer.
Casey - I've been saying for a while that I'm not so sure this is because of more parent dossiers. And the State Dept's statement, along with the agency's "2/3" statement, back that up.
The CCAA is issueing less referrals than they were.
That might be because of less paper ready babies, it might be due to some other reason. But the statement that there are more parent dossiers does not fit.
Ummm.....I am speechless! There is rumor of discrinmination to mixed race couples? That's us!!! I moniter APC and other groups and have not heard this one yet...But we are LID August so our dossier has left the review room. That means we're good..Right? Right????
fu_fairy - I've thought about that, but then I'm pretty sure that I've seen a Spain something or other complaining about getting less referrals than they were, so I believe they have slowed down as well.
Liz and Hosea - I would assume you are okay if you are an August LID. There was a discussion that kind of touched on this on January 9th on APC under the thread title "Adoptions by African-Americans/Interracial couples"
hiya. can i ask for explanation on the "boy glut" RQ where you said,"and then goes on to say that the "boy glut" could not be helped by them slowing down adoptions so he doesn't think they are slowing it down on purpose."
i don't understand that sentence and i don't know what a boy glut is. too many boys up for adoption?
sorry if i'm being dumb here.
thanks~
dianne
thank goodness you're back online!
the "boy glut" term wasn't defined in the email, but I was assuming they were referring to the fact that China has more boys than girls, and that eventually there will be millions of men who will not be able to marry.
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