If you know someone who has adopted a child – or maybe if you have adopted – then you know the long process that adoption requires. In fact, adopting a child can often take even longer than the nine-month process of having a child. But adoption agencies, governments and parents all want to make sure that the child will live with a good, compatible family, and the following years the new family shares will well be worth every hour of paperwork and research. International adoptions tend to require even more legal issues – along with required pre-adoption visitations – than domestic adoption, and a Mexico adoption follows these standards, as well.
In Mexico, the system of the Mexican government called the State System for the Full Development of the Family governs the Mexico adoption process, along with other family issues. This system decides on the eligibility of each child, and also makes arrangement with the prospective adoptive parents. To qualify for adoption, a child must have orphan status, which means that either both parents have died, or a parent or parents have released the child for adoption. Abandoned children may also qualify for adoption, but the Mexican government has to first do a thorough search for any living relatives of the child. As a foreigner, you may also have to get permission to adopt from the Mexican Secretary of the Interior, but officials will guide you through this process. The specific terms of Mexico adoption vary among each of Mexico’s 31 states, also, so if you run into criteria that you can’t overcome in one state, then you can still try to look for a child in another state.
The paperwork and the time requirements make a Mexico adoption more complex than a domestic adoption. Before you adopt, the Mexican government requires that you visit the country for at least two weeks in order to fill out piles of legal paperwork and documents, as well as to meet the child. All the orphans in need of adoption currently live in orphanages, and the government tries to place them with either relatives or Mexican applicants as top priorities. Many times, adoptive parents can adopt siblings together, and children with special needs also wait in the orphanages for parents. As an adoptive parent, you have to be over 25 years old, as well as at least 17 years older than the child. If you adopt a child over 14 years old, the child must also give his or her own consent, as well.
In addition to the paperwork and intensive background checks, Mexican law also requires that you have a trial period for six months before you legally adopt. During this time, the child cannot leave Mexico, so you have to stay in Mexico with the child. However, as a foreigner, you can try to get this requirement waived because of the inconvenience, as well as because of the different conditions than normal. You also have to remember to get the child a visa before he or she moves to the U.S. This process can also take a lot of time. These strict requirements have caused illegitimate adoption agents to find children outside the legal orphanages and match them in an illegal process. However, keep in mind that while this process compromises safety, if the child doesn’t have a visa, then he or she will probably experience problems in school or with social security later on.
By Lisa Zyga