Process in Haiti

• Steps that happen in Haiti, after sending our dossier, before we can bring our children home:
  
  
  
  • Agency/Orphanage combines dossier with information on the child(ren), and submitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be authenticated – aka "First Legals". 2-6 weeks.
    
  • While file in "First Legals", lawyer gathers social history of child(ren) to be combined with parents’ home study and prepared to submit to IBESR when back from Ministry of Foreign Affairs
    
  • IBESR – social worker reviews file and decides whether or not to approve adoption. Four signatures required: IBESR Director, IBESR lawyer, head of adoption services at IBESR, and the IBESR social worker. 3-6 months
    
  • Civil court – adoption will be finalized and child is legally ours. 1-2 months
    
  • Judgement (new part of the process as of late 2006), 1-2 months
    
  • Legalization (aka "Second Legal") – signed and authenticated by various government entities. 2-4 weeks
    
  • Haitian staff gets English translations and sends to adoptive parents for them to go to their local CIS office to file I-600
    
  • Haitian staff in the meantime apply for child(ren)’s passport(s) at the Ministry of Interior Affairs. 2-4 weeks
    
  • Child(ren)’s passport(s) issued and printed through Haitian Immigration. 1-6 weeks
    
  
  
• Our part for end of process in Haiti, when applying for child’s passport FedEx the following to Haiti for USCIS appointment in Haiti:
  
  
  
  • I-600 for each child being adopted (both signatures notarized) ***Not anymore – now done stateside? – but still in dossier instructions, so need to check on.
    
  • G-28s (if not already sent in dossier)
    
  • I-171 (copy of the one USCIS sent us showing that I-600A approval has been cabled to Haiti)
    
  • I-864
    
  
  
• After final USCIS approval & passport(s) received, an appointment is made at the consulate for the children’s Visa, after which the parents are then able to bring their child(ren) home.