Calls for Adoptees to be United with Their Families

WASHINGTON —  An amendment introduced this week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) calls for internationally adopted children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to be united with their families. The amendment passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as part of a manager’s package to the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of State authorization bill.

“It’s been enormously frustrating,” Johnson said of the suspension implemented in September 2013 by the Congolese government, halting exit permits for children adopted by foreign parents. “I welcome the recent progress the DRC has made to unite some of these children with their families, but we still have families waiting.  We will continue to press the DRC until we get all of these kids home.”

Johnson’s amendment urges the DRC to resolve international adoption cases as soon as possible and calls on the U.S. government to continue to treat the release of internationally adopted children from the DRC as a priority.  

Background:

In September 2013, the Congolese government suspended the issuance of exit permits for children adopted by foreign parents, citing concerns over the wellbeing of the children.  This suspension prevented children from achieving the last hurdle to travel home and has affected hundreds of American families, including at least eight in Wisconsin. And under current law, a U.S. immigrant visa for an adoptee expires if it is not used within six months. The cost for renewal of this visa is $325 — meaning, in some cases, Wisconsin families may have spent as much as $1,000 each to repeatedly renew visas for their adopted children, who remain stuck in the DRC.

In May 2015, Sen. Johnson co-authored the Adoptive Family Relief Act, a bill to allow the State Department to waive these visa renewal fees for families adopting children from abroad in exceptional circumstances where children are unable to come home to the United States in a timely manner. The bill was signed into law on Oct. 16, 2015.