Has anyone here who is a US citizen gone through the process of adopting a Cambodian stepchild in Cambodia? That is adopting the child with the express purpose of staying in Cambodia and not relocating to the US. As it has been explained to me by the embassy the process is as follows.
1. Get a full domestic adoption of the child from the Cambodian court.
2. Register the adoption at the embassy. In the absence of any other evidence this is considered the point at which you stated to live with and provide for the child.
3. Prove that you have lived with and provided for the child for two years and the US will consider the child your child for the purposes of immigration.
I'm getting a lot of head scratching on the Cambodian side from lawyers who specialize in adoption and they keep going back to the old intercountry adoption routine which the US cut off in 2001 and doesn't apply in the case of stepchildren. Anyone know anything or have any suggestions?
K
Stepchild Adoption (US citizen)
If you are not relocating why bother with the official angst ?.just ship the kid in and start providing. many people do it.
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- Suspicious Little Mad Woman
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well I can see why they go back to the inter-country procedure.
Despite your intentions to stay in Cambodia, they cannot prevent you ever leaving - with the child if you have adopted them.
If it were possible to adopt merely by declaring "But, I'm not ever going to live in my home country again", there would be a fair few people lining up to adopt who were lying through their teeth.
Despite your intentions to stay in Cambodia, they cannot prevent you ever leaving - with the child if you have adopted them.
If it were possible to adopt merely by declaring "But, I'm not ever going to live in my home country again", there would be a fair few people lining up to adopt who were lying through their teeth.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
- Plutarch
The reason is for the whole exercise is for the US to recognize the children as my children as opposed to simply my wife's children. At which point I can apply for US citizenship for them without having to apply for visas, move back to the US and have everyone live there five years. I don't know if I will live here forever, but I don't see myself going back to live in the US anytime soon.
As for me spiriting the children out once they are adopted, I guess that it's possible but I'm not sure now likely. One of the conditions on the apoption is that my wife retains perental rights to the children, mine are added. Inorder for the children to leave the country they would need Cambodian passports and visas for the destination country. Any real country is going to question one parent getting a visa for a child without the other parents consent, but I know this isn't the case for all and there are a handfull of countries you can enter on a Cambodian passport without a visa. You would think that a barang showing up at the airport with Cambodian children in tow and their mother nowhere in sight would raise alarms, but being Cambodia maybe not.
I have another meeting with a lawyer this afternoon who seems more on the ball, so we'll see how it goes.
K
As for me spiriting the children out once they are adopted, I guess that it's possible but I'm not sure now likely. One of the conditions on the apoption is that my wife retains perental rights to the children, mine are added. Inorder for the children to leave the country they would need Cambodian passports and visas for the destination country. Any real country is going to question one parent getting a visa for a child without the other parents consent, but I know this isn't the case for all and there are a handfull of countries you can enter on a Cambodian passport without a visa. You would think that a barang showing up at the airport with Cambodian children in tow and their mother nowhere in sight would raise alarms, but being Cambodia maybe not.
I have another meeting with a lawyer this afternoon who seems more on the ball, so we'll see how it goes.
K
I don't know how the Cambodian adoption process works. I've heard that you need to reside in Cambodia for 2 years, but I don't know the details. The adoption visa, of course, isn't allowed at the moment.JosephK wrote:The reason is for the whole exercise is for the US to recognize the children as my children as opposed to simply my wife's children. At which point I can apply for US citizenship for them without having to apply for visas, move back to the US and have everyone live there five years.
I know that, having just about finished getting a spouse visa for my wife, Cambodians have no clue when it comes to dealing with the US government. ("You need to get permission from your government to get married!" "No, I don't. They could hardly care less if I get married.") My wife insisted on bringing all sorts of useless paperwork (her family registry, a letter to the prime minister requesting permission to marry, my HIV test results, etc.) to the visa interview.
I would suppose that the adoption process on the Cambodian side should be the same, minus the application for a visa, which has nothing to do with Cambodia per se. So just as my wife gathered lots of useless paperwork when we got married (translated into English at inflated prices by the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even) that was simply ignored, you can do the "international" adoption procedure, but just ignore the extra paperwork they give you and not apply for the adoption visa.
But on the US side, once you've adopted your stepchildren, they are automatically naturalized without any waiting period or civics test etc. and you can apply for the naturalization certificates. So you can just apply for the visa for your wife (her children automatically get visas) and then adopt them there. This would take at least 9 months for the visa, plus however much time it takes to adopt stepchildren in the US, but you would only need to be there in the US for the time it takes to complete the adoption.
A spouse of a US citizen, by the way, can naturalize after only 3 years. 5 years is only necessary for those not married to US citizens.
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