Auguest Referrals

Referrals arrived today for LID (logged in date) 11/8-11/21 /05(maybe a lucky 11/22?) families. For the expedited due to Chinese heritage group, the June 2006 families have received referrals. A CERG (Yahoo group for expedited due to Chinese heritage) family who should be expedited is anxious because they have not gotten theirs. Will have to wait to see what the glitch is.

With each batch of referrals, the slow down gets worse because only part of a month gets matched each month. It will take at least 4 months to get through November 2005 for the regular group, though there are hopes that things may speed up a bit after November, it being a "big"month. For the expedited group, the CCAA seems to refer either half of a month at a time or a whole month every other month. I think they just sort of eyeball the pile and try to keep the expedited group about 6 months ahead of the regular group. I was hoping that they would expedite base on rate of referral rather than a fixed interval, but they don't seem to be doing that.

What that means for us is uncertain since we are so early in the process we are not even logged in yet. If the current rate of referral does not speed up, then people who are just paperchasing now would not get a referral for 10 years! That's essentially saying that the adoption will not happen. Though there are rumors, the CCAA has stated recently that they are not planning to shut down the IA program. One can only assume that they have a way to speed things back up so the referral time remains reasonable (reasonable being 3 years for now).

Dramatic speed up is expected after the May 2007 group has been processed because of the rule change, but there are still 18 months of backlog (or 4.5-6 years at the current rate!) until then. For the expedited group the back log is 11 months until May 2007, so 22 months. (Though again, the CCAA seems to want to keep the difference between the 2 groups at a consistent 6 month. They sometimes skip several months of the expedited group...) I am not counting the months after May because it is possible that the number of applicants can drop so much after May 2007 that families receive a referral as soon as they pass review (not likely, but just to simplify my calculation). That can be approximately 5 years from now. I suppose I am still young enough for a baby 5 years from now, do not think 10 years would be possible though. The lady that runs Hand in Hand in Albion will probably have retired by then!

Many are hoping for a significant change in the rate of referral after next year's Olympic. The hypothesis being that the slow down was done to avoid the potential negative image of China being viewed as the "great baby exporter" while the reporters roam around Beijing looking for stories. I can sort of see that happening, we won't know until next year this time though. I won't comment if that's right or wrong, good or bad, international adoption is a very complex issue in and of itself. Obviously, the Chinese and the adoptive parents are coming from two very different perspectives and I am both Chinese (well, Taiwanese anyways) and an adoptive parent.

The CCAA maintains that the slow down is due to simple supply and demand, i.e. a dramatic increase in the number of adoptive parents and decrease in the number of babies abandoned, coupled with increase in domestic adoption. Other issues mentioned in the China adoption community include the change in how orphanage donation (fees) from international adoption are now distributed across the province rather than just to the particular SWI (social welfare institutes) involved, therefore decreasing the motivation and/or the resources that SWI's have to make their babies paper ready for international adoption. Orphanages (SWI's) are now increasing their fees, after 15 years. Regardless of whether or not things will speed up, I think the fee increase is more than reasonable. The USCIS increased the I-600A fee to a total of $730 from $685, the certificate of citizenship fee is also to be increased...etc. Things are just more expensive in China now, as it is in the US, compared to 15 years ago. I think there are some uneasiness that allowing orphanages to charge their own fee can lead to corruption and even some form of baby trafficking. I am hoping that the CCAA will issue guidelines for the SWI's to charge what they need based on the local situation but avoid the scandals of corruption to taint what has been a "model program" for international adoption.

For now, I will be thrilled to see our I-171H before 8/11/07, and hopefully get logged in by September.