Hello

I don't know where to begin this or even if it can be done. My SO has been in America since March 15th and we got married June 6th. Everything is fantastic and we’re both very happy. My wife comes from a large family in Fushun, China (I know, somewhat rare). Anyway long story short, her brother has been divorced for five years. He has a 10 year old daughter (jiaqi) and the mother has left to live in another city. The girl’s father has been unemployed for some time now and my wife's mother (of course, also her brother's mother) has been watching jiaqi. She's approaching 70 years old and her husband has passed away about four years ago. So it's difficult for her to raise jiaqi and financially difficult as well. Me and my wife have discussed this both between ourselves and the affected parties in China and have decided to adopt or at least bring jiaqi to America and raise her here. How would we go about this? Do we need to adopt her or just have her live with us in America? Of course jiaqi and her father have agreed to this, I'm also told that Jiaqi's mother would agree to this. I'm thinking that we could bring her to America for educational purposes. I have no problem adopting her though and would love to. This way when we return to China to visit her family jiaqi can also see her father. Could somebody please point out some of the hurdles we'll need to jump? Is adoption possible or if not adopting can she with family consent live with us in America? Most of the adoption processes I read about involve an orphan. Jiaqi is not an orphan.

Thank You!
Clare & Lisa

You can not file for a niece..... if you adopted her you would have to live with her in her country for 2 years before you could then
file for her to come to the US....

Family immigration
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD

Adoption
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/men...00045f3d6a1RCRD


Kez

Wow, there's no way to bring my Wife's Niece to America unless we live in China for two years first? That hardly seems fair. Can't she come to America for educational purposes and we don't adopt her? I read the links and can't fully interpret them.

Since I posted this back in December I've received multiple questions concerning my progress. Everybody sends me a PM. This is nice but it doesn't keep this thread updated on our progress. This answer was a reply that I feel should be here to help answer questions that members have.

If she's an orphan it's no problem, but if she's a niece and has parents or even parent it can't be done. You can't even get to first base, on adopting a child that has parent(s). There are only two options that we can come up with. First you can go to China and live with her for two years while in China and you can adopt her. At this point that is out of the question for us. The option that we are choosing is to bring her to America with an I-20 visa. This is an educational visa. You won't be able to send her to a public school as she won't be a citizen. It appears the only way to do it is to send her to a parochial school where you pay the whole tuition. You'll need to provide all of her support as the government won't help in any way. Remember she's not a citizen and doesn't qualify for anything from the government. We don't care, we've got our I-20 filled out from a qualifying school but we want her to come to America first and spend a couple months to see if she likes it here. This is such a large decision for her we want her to be certain before she commits herself in either direction.

Good luck, you'll need it. We had a lawyer search for over two months for any way to adopt her and it can't be done. Only some medical reasons would be considered. Example the parents are terminally ill with no chance of recovery. Good luck proving that.

All the Best
Clare & Lisa

Hi Clare-n-Lisa,

Thanks for the info & updates. Actually my wife and I have a similar situation, we need to bring her 11 year old niece here from PRC, with the support of her parents.

I think we will look into that I-20 idea. Any further insight/experiences you might have to offer since you have already started the process would be much appreciated.

We Will keep this string updated with our findings.

Thank you again for posting your experience!

-George & Alora

Yes, Clare, what you said is true. We are currently looking into adopting my orphaned nephew and the hoops are nearly mindboggling.

If your brother was her ONLY parent and could prove a true hardship, you could actually work around it and adopt her. However, that just isn't the case.

I'm sorry for all your troubles.

F1 Student visa is a non immigrant visa. As such the applicant would need to show acces to funds to cover the costs of the education and also that she or he is not looking to immigrate to the US.

It would be unusual for a 10 year old to use a F1, normally more college focussed, it can be done.

To visit the approriate visa would be a B2, asuming no acess to the VWP.



US Government? Sounds more something for the Chinese Government.

Since we couldn't bring our niece from the Philippines we are supporting her nursing education. Fastest and only realistic way we can get her here.
BIG demand for nurses in the US.

But no visa numbers, last I heard.

Try here:

http://allnurses.com/

First issue is if even China would release her, I did a web search on that for another country, found contacts and made calls, you may want to try to do the same. In my case, it was a five year deal and the child would have been too old for adoption after that wait.

Second issue is contacting an immigration attorney to find out if you can even bring a child over here, and how, this is a complicated procedure and looks pretty bad if you are even a US citizen and not a blood relative to that person.

Regarding public schools, there was a Texas supreme case on this that contradicted the USCIS where every child in the USA is entitled to an education. I did check into that as well, but it never came to that. The school's attorneys all agreed that this child could attend public schools. But this is still against USCIS regulations, another case where one agency has different laws than another. But plenty of illegals attending our school and even getting food stamps, as a legal PRC and the I-864, no such thing as food stamps, if you need them.

We may have good intentions to help a child, but depending on the country and this country, it just makes it impossible. If nothing else, can send some money to help that child, but on a circumstance such as yours, would seek legal advice.

Wife and I are sending money to help that child, that is all we can do, talking about sending more when they keep on devaluating the dollar.

But every country has different rules, I don't know anything about China.

Which of these programs did you have in mind?

http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1267.html#1

I am confused by this... my stepson is not a citizen and he attends public school.... When we registered him for school we could not have proven his legal presence in the USA, if asked, as his I-94 had expired.

Maybe it is the difference between policy and reality...

Did he seek entry on a F1 Visa?