USA Green Card Immigration Blog

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have announced two specialized categories for screening Haitian children authorized by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano after the Haitian earthquake. These two categories is applicable to those Haitian children who were adopted or in the process by American families before Jan12, 2010.

The first category applies to children who have been legally confirmed as orphans and termed eligible for inter country adoption by the Government of Haiti (GOH.) The second category applies to children who can be matched to American prospective adoptive parents and have been previously identified through an Adoption Service Provider (ASP) or an inter country adoption facilitator. Each category has a list of eligibility requirements.

Eligible children for this program are required to be taken for orphan screening. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has given a set of instructions to adoptive parent in the United States, adoptive parents in Haiti with adoptive child, and orphanage directors or other individuals caring for orphan children. As per the instructions, it is essential that an appointment for orphan screening is requested. Adoptive parent in the United States are required to send an email with the appointment request as the subject line.

The body of the email should have the child’s full name, child’s date of birth, where the child is living, and any vulnerability regarding the child. It is better to have the adoption document, identity document, and current photos of the child during orphan screening. Groups of children in an orphanage can be brought together for the orphan screening. It is advised to take an appointment earlier so that all the children in one orphanage can be screened at the same time.

For a kid in an orphanage, the appointment request email’s subject line should be orphanage seeking appointment. The body of the email should have details about all the children and details about prospective parents. For an adoptive parent in Haiti with adoptive child, the subject line of the appointment request email, should state urgent-adoptive parent in Haiti. The body of the email must contain the parent’s name and the address in addition to the child’s details.