Speech #1010039071

American agencies can neither be expected to track down the fathers of illegitimate children in foreign countries. nor can we realistically require foreign countries to do this for us. INS officers tell my office that such searches are not their aim. They are concerned primarily with the putative fathers rights when the presence of these fathers is manifest in the documentation that accompanies an application for immigration. This is reasonable. The fathers approval should be sought if he is readily available. Unfortunately. a "catch 22" makes it immaterial whether the father says "yes" or "no." Under INSs ruling. a child may not be brought into this country as an "orphan" without ensuring the rights of the putative fathers. But it is then usually impossible for the child to immigrate if these rights are exercised. This is the glitch: Once a father is acknowledged. if there is also a mother. the child can no longer be classified as an orphan since tinder the law. an orphan can have no more than one parent. Thus. the child cant immigrate. The proposed legislation addresses the logistical problems and the catch 22 while preserving the right of the father. who is present. to have a say in whether his child can be adopted by an American family. Under this language. the father need not be tracked down if he has disappeared. or if he has abandoned or deserted the child. Thus. the sign off right is limited to a father whose presence and concern are evident. Then. if the father releases the child for emigration and adoption. the child retains his orphan status and therefore can emigrate to the United States. Since World War II. American families have made a tradition of adopting needy children from overseas. These adoptions have worked out very well. and we now have thousands of adult citizens who came here as adopted children. Virtually all of these children have come to this country tinder the "orphan" provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. There are now approximately 10.000 foreign adoptions a year: 10.000 American families ecstatic to have a child. and 10.000 fortunate children who are gaining loving families. The agencies that handle foreign adoptions agree that a large portion of these children are illegitimate. although no statistics are available. Foreign adoptions would be severely reduced if quixotic quests for putative fathers were required or if immigration were precluded by the discovery of these fathers. As I said at the outset. this is a small repair but it is a vital one for the lives and happiness of many thousands of children and families. I ask unanimous consent that this legislation be printed in the RECORD. and I urge my colleagues to hasten its passage.