get your child's Certificate of Citizenship

FIRST go read the story on this blog.Grasping at the Wind. Story about a failed vacation due to improper citizen documentation claim by the vacation company.  http://graspingwind.blogspot.com/2013/10/bon-voyage.html?spref=tw

THEN you can read my comments on it below. Won't make any sense if you don't read their post first.


I would like to say that considering the number of internationally adopted kids, every company that could possibly have a citizen requirement should have the stipulations spelled out clearly. Very clearly. There is no excuse for this having occurred. 1. the company should have had the information in all their documents for all clients prior to boarding. 2. they should have some provision for the family since the company is the one who had failed to communicate what documents were needed. 3. a refund guarantee should have been offered immediately. 4. I do commend the company for being careful as it could sway child kidnapping and abuse, but this was pretty clearly not that situation. They may have to abide by Interpol as they are going through non US waters. Interpol is very stringent on this sort of thing, even with biological kids.

With that in mind, what most adoptive parents don't know is that very little will prove the citizenship of a child. While the adoption does make your child a citizen the documents to prove that vary greatly and it is the whim of the organization what proof they will accept as there is no national standard enforced. Your child comes in with a particular visa that makes them a citizen in conjunction with a state validation of foreign adoption (also called other things). This makes them a citizen and the green card they got should show that but not everyone takes that. So, you go with this info and get a passport (or passport card) for your child, that is good. It needs renewed and by the time you have renewed it every few years until your child reaches adulthood you have spent nearly as much as a COC would have cost and you now have to trust that your child will be responsible with his or her documents and renew the passport every few years. Good but not good enough in my opinion. Many kids now come in and automatically get a Certificate of Citizenship, that is awesome.  I would encourage all parents to go to the furthest extent in order to have the documents to prove their child's citizenship. That would be the Certificate of Citizenship. While not required it is the ONLY document universally accepted as proof. A terrible way to make money off adoptive parents who have already put out a lot of money. Yep. But worth it in the end if you don't come home with the visa that gives you one automatically.

Here is what the family had (and my experience with why that was not enough, but should have been):

• An original, embossed birth certificate issued by State Vital Records. (this is a Certificate of Foreign Birth in most counties and states. It is often considered a mere formality and in some cases is taken and in others it is declared a "souvenir document" and rejected, it is NOT proof of citizenship in any case. A Certificate of Foreign Birth is not really a Birth Certificate and thus your child will never have an actual Birth Certificate, as sad as that is.)
• His current Ethiopian passport with entry Visa (Child Citizenship Act of 2000 allows an adopted child’s foreign passport with US entry stamp as proof of US citizenship). (while this DOES indicate and proclaim citizenship, there is not a law binding on any entity to accept this as proof, even though it is. It is understandable that this would need to be accompanied by another document such as the adoption certificate in order to differentiate the child as a citizen by adoption rather than a child on a different form of visa. Many would not be able to distinguish between the variations of visa's allowed and what reasons they are given for. The employee would need trained on this to accept it. Which was obviously not the case.)
• High resolution scan of his USCIS (green card) on phone. They didn't take the original because it wasn't listed as a required document .  (the green card gives permission to enter and live in the US -in this case permanently, not always the case- it does not prove or grant Citizenship for all organizations rules, however it is supposed to do the same as a COC in this instance, especially when combined with all the other info they had available. I have to say that I would have taken this with as a precaution as it is a rather important document proving the right to be in the USA and leaving our shores is risky business without it. A copy or scan of this is just not going to cut it. If they had had it that would have worked. Too bad they did not think of it and the company did not mention it.)
• High res scan of his social security card and adoption decree; also offered to fax / email / overnight.  (the social security card does not prove citizenship ever, you can get one with a green card for work. The adoption decree from a Validation or Readopt does guarantee citizenship, however it is not used as proof in any setting that I am familiar with, why I don't know, it is silly.)

paperwork once you are home: Validation, Readoption, finalization, birth certificate

2. Apply for the validation of foreign adoption (also called re-adopt or finalization). (El Paso County COLORADO forms if you are in another state just look up your county or state government page and look for forms or information, then look for the word adoptions and then under that validation of foreign adoptions, this should come up with info for you). On this form you can also change your child's name. In many cases the child will not come home with the name you would like for him or her to have, and in many cases will not even have your last name. In many states you can also change the child's birth date if needed. See post on birth date change.  There are varying degrees of proof needed for this depending on your county and state. I would suggest doing this only if it is really needed. In Colorado, I added this to the form under the change of name. I also wrote a letter stating our reasons and attached the "proof" documents. It worked out just fine for us. If you do this first your child's name will be correct on all the rest of the official papers and you will not have to redo it. You have to do this before you can get the citizenship papers anyway. Get the fingerprint reports (FBI and state) and the child abuse record/clearance from your DHS from your adoption agency, ally need is the copies they have on file. Your window of time for them to remain valid is important. Get it done fast or you will need to renew them. That is ok and not too expensive, it just takes time. If you are waiting on age of child to change the birth date, you have time, do the fingerprints again and wait on them to come and your child's progress at the same time. The fee for this in CO is $168 (this is from 2010 and will go up with each year) per child if they are not biologically related, $168 if they are blood related and a $3 charge for each additional blood related child. After you validate the adoption your child WILL be a legal citizen however will still only have the green card, why I don't know. This process and paper does not prove your child's citizenship by parentage. So you have to file for the proof of citizenship.

**A few notes from our experience. *On the Report of Adoption put your child's name that you are changing it to, not their original name.

*** I do not know if you have to do the Validation if you came home on an IR3 Visa. They are already citizens. 

2b. *After your hearing you will walk the files over to the COURT records, not the county records, this is MOST likely in the same building you had your hearing in. We were actually told the county.... ha! *You can then buy some copies of the decree. They are $30-40 each (2010). This will be filed and sealed and you will have to have a court motion to open it again and so you need the copies as you will not be able to access this again with ease. *Then you wait for the letter in the mail from the state department that handles adoption birth certificates. For us that is in Denver. Then you send them the money and they send you the certificates. This gets you a state validation foreign birth certificate, which is useful and highly necessary. However, it states right on it that it is not proof of citizenship. In some instances it also can not be used as a proof of date of birth, identity because it is a certificate of foreign birth, so essentially they are still birth certificate-less.  It also says that it is just a certificate certifying foreign birth.... which is about as good as it gets if you don't have any clue when that precious child of yours was actually born. There is a fee here. In CO it is about $38 per child (2010). You can buy extra ones for a discount at this time. Sounds like a good idea. One for the lock box and one for use. Once you get the birth certificates you can file for proof of citizenship. Unlike the Validation you CAN order more of these at any time.