Completing Pending China Adoptions:
A Win-Win For China, The US, Waiting Children, and The Families Who Love Them.

By Karla Roozen Thrasher, Senior Director of International Adoption at Lifeline Children’s Services

Over the past three decades, the US has enjoyed a rich partnership with China in the space of inter-country adoption.

Since 1992, China has facilitated more than 160,000 foreign adoptions, with over half of those children coming to the US. In 2005, the US saw its highest numbers of adoptions from China with 8,000 children being adopted by US families.

The world has always looked to China as a model for inter-country adoption processing.

The actual paperwork process was streamlined, efficient, and predictable. The CCCWA, China’s Central Authority, was responsive, relational, and generally always acted in the best interest of children.

Because of this, many countries have even replicated China’s regulations, professional standards and protocols in their own programs.

In the early years, the children being adopted from China were typically young girls, medically healthy and under 18 months of age. As policies changed and cultural stigma loosened regarding domestic adoption, the profile of Chinese children eligible for inter-country adoption changed as well.

Due to domestic adoption numbers increasing in China, we were no longer seeing younger children with mild needs eligible for international adoption but had now moved into a new area of seeing more referrals for older children and children with more serious needs. While we celebrated children having the opportunity to be adopted domestically and be raised in their country/culture of origin, this transition would also impact the number of foreign adoptions being processed by China. In 2019, China processed less than 1000 foreign adoptions, with 819 of those children coming to the US. These were the lowest numbers of foreign adoptions processed by China since 1994.

As much as we were shocked by the ever-decreasing numbers of adoptions from China, nothing could have prepared us for what would happen next. Very unexpectedly, in late January of 2020, we saw adoptions suspended in China due to the worldwide pandemic.

At the time of the suspension, over 400 families in process were “matched” with children. By definition, this meant China had given its approval for the families to adopt the children they were pursuing. Families had information about the child; including pictures and video and families were committed to these children.

We naively thought adoptions would resume in weeks…and then months…and here we are four and half years later.

Further concerning, many of the families in process had actually met and spent time with the children they were matched with through hosting or fostering opportunities. For instance, Lifeline, the organization I am associated with, facilitated one of the last hosting opportunities in November 2019.

As a part of this program, sixteen children from China spent two weeks in a home in the US, where they experienced being part of a family.

These precious children thought they would one day return to the US and join these families forever.

I’m thinking specifically of a young boy who is blind named MingLi:

MingLi is now 16 years old, loves music, and often participates in talent shows at his orphanage.

He has a dad, a mom, three brothers and a little sister waiting for him in the US.

When it was time for MingLi to return to China, Charley, the little sister, said it was her “hardest cry ever”.

I’m also thinking of a little girl with Down Syndrome named Xin Xin:

Xin Xin is now nine years old. She has the best smile and was a joy to be around.

Xin Xin loved dressing up, having her nails done and is all things “girly”.

Xin Xin has a dad, a mom and a big brother waiting for her in the US.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, most families remained in contact with the child they were matched with through updates from the orphanage, monthly zoom calls and by sending care packages.

Again, these children thought someone was coming for them.

In 2022, official contact between children and their adoptive parents in the US was discontinued due to a mandate from the Chinese government. Orphanages were no longer able to provide updates on the children to agencies or the adoptive families. This now meant that families were now totally in the dark with regard to how their children were doing.

At the same time, agencies learned that orphanages were encouraging the domestic adoption of these children. So now, families wondered and worried if their matches were still intact or if the children they considered to be theirs had been adopted by a family in China.

At this point, the world had seemingly recovered from the pandemic and things had begun to feel normal again but the adoption process in China had still not resumed.

The adoption community began to wonder if there may be other reasons why China was not moving forward with foreign adoptions. For the first time, we truly began to wonder if these children were ever coming home. We began to ask more questions, a lot of questions. And we sent more emails…a lot of emails….

We were advocating for these children and families on both sides of the ocean, but communication between the US and Chinese governments was non-existent and our questions and emails were not being answered.

In early 2023, US agencies received emails from the CCCWA indicating that [those few] families who had received Travel Approvals prior to the suspension of adoptions would soon be invited to travel to China to finalize their adoptions! This was the moment we had waited for! Slowly but surely, over the next nine months, approximately 40 US families traveled to China to meet their children and finally bring them “home.” The last child from this group was adopted right before Chinese New Year, in early February, 2024. I am so happy to report that the majority of the children are thriving in their new homes in the US.

Many of us exhaled, thinking surely we’d see the process continue for the other matched children and families, too.

But then…more silence. Agencies and families stepped up their advocacy and question-asking.

Advocacy efforts seemed to go unnoticed and the questions still unanswered.

Then, in the summer of 2024, we thought we were seeing baby steps of progress towards more families traveling. Other countries reported receiving emails from the CCCWA inquiring about families still wanting to move forward with adoption.

There was again hope and excitement!

We anticipated receiving the same email.

We thought, maybe we were just waiting our turn?

Hopes were dashed on Wednesday, September 4th, 2024 we received an email from DOS notifying US agencies and waiting families that China would no longer carry out foreign adoption work.

After processing the notice further, something did not feel right about this notification.

The notice from the US included “pending” families, indicating that the families matched with children might not be moving forward with their adoptions. While we have always known the closure of the program, and even anticipated this was a possible outcome, we were confused that the notification included the matched, waiting families.

The adoption community had always hoped, and even anticipated, that matched families would be allowed to finalize their adoptions.

Another confusing point: there was no official announcement from the CCCWA to agencies and no evidence of the notification provided to us in writing from our DOS. This was not how we were typically notified of changes in adoption policies from China.

And while the US was using the word “pending” in their email, this word did not appear in any other articles or news clips coming out of China. Since receiving the notice from DOS, adoptive families and agencies have partnered in asking very specific questions, seeking clarity and advocating for the approximately 300 waiting children and the families pursuing them.

Organizations working in this space do not take lightly children being denied families.

We believe children belong in families. The children we are advocating for all have known, moderate special needs. Many of them are in need of extensive medical care, some even life-saving care, that is not available to them as an orphan in China.

For most of these children, this was their last chance at having a family. These children have been passed over for domestic adoption, as well. Once aging out of the orphanage, this most vulnerable group of children will be on their own. With each passing day, the world becomes a more dangerous place for this demographic.

The families pursuing these children have invested heart, time, and financial resources.

They have remained committed to children that are now five years older than they anticipated adopting.

They have spent countless hours and dollars to keep their paperwork updated.

They have endured countless questions about when their child is coming home, always giving the same answer, “I just don’t know”.

We are not done fighting for these children and families and are so grateful you have joined us today to learn more about this situation.

In addition to advocating for the matched children, it will now be important to begin planning for the hundreds of thousands of children that will remain in the orphanages in China.

In closing, we are calling on the US government to continue to advocate for the approximately 300 waiting children and families at the very highest levels. In addition, we are calling on our Central Authority, the US Department of State, to build stronger relationships with our inter-country adoption partners so that we are better supported in advocating for waiting children all over the world.

Remarks originally delivered at a Hudson Institute symposium, “Prioritizing China’s Vulnerable Children after the CCP’s Suspension of International Adoptions,” on September 27, 2024. Used with permission.