Stahlke Adoption

Extend or Start Over?

The most pressing document in Kola's dossier is the I-600A, which takes the federal U.S. government (CIS) about 12 weeks to process. Considering Masha would like our dossier by late February, we're already late!

(Let me explain some alphabet soup: INS=BCIS=CIS. The former Immigration and Naturalization Service became the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, which became Citizenship and Immigration Services. The CIS is housed under the Department of Homeland Security.)

The I-600A is an "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition." The CIS determines if we will furnish proper care to an orphan if that child is admitted to the U.S. They also certify that we have met all preadoption requirements in the state of Illinois. (Adoption is administered by the state and not the federal government.) The phrase "advance processing" means that this government work is done before we travel to Ukraine.

To determine if we will furnish proper care to an orphan, the CIS requires:
Proof of U.S. citizenship--in our case, copies of our current passports
Proof of marriage--a copy of our marriage certificate
Home Study--our agency's description of us and our home, and their verification that we meet Illinois adoption requirements.

The I-600A application costs $670, along with a "biometrics" fee of $80 for each adult living in the household. "Biometrics" means fingerprinting because they will run a background check on us.

With a total fee of $820 involved, we wondered if it was possible to extend our current approval from a year ago rather than start over with a new application (extensions are free). Today, Darlene from LSS in Connecticut told us that we have to do a new application. Our current approval will expire in July, and extensions are only available in the 90 days prior to expiration. Since Masha needs documents by the end of February, and they have to be valid until December, we can't wait to do the extension.

So . . . all of you that have donated money to the Stahlke adoption fund, please know that we will be using $820 of it very soon. The rest is waiting for (hopefully) next summer when we travel again to Ukraine.

posted by Stahlkes @ 4:52 PM