Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your stated commitment to the development of a Vietnamese system of child welfare that protects children from exploitation, and supports domestic and international adoption as viable alternatives for children whose families cannot care for them. We appreciate your direct and active involvement in this important issue and look forward to working with you as you continue these efforts.

We applaud your country’s goal to accede to the Hague Convention on lntercountry Adoption and understand that some steps have already been undertaken to move towards that goal. We know from our own experience that Hague accession requires a complete review of adoption procedures at the national and local level, and thus may take several years to complete. lt is with this in mind that we express our interest in continuing progress toward a new bilateral agreement on international adoptions between the United States and Vietnam that will serve the interests of Vietnamese children in need while the Hague process is completed. We remain hopeful that it will be possible to re-establish an adoption program between the United States and Vietnam in the near future. We share the belief that systematic reform and procedural safeguards must first be established to ensure a safe, effective, and ethical international adoption system in Vietnam that protects children, birth parents, and prospective adoptive parents alike.

You can rely on our full support as your government works to design and establish these reforms.

Sincerely,

Dear President Obama,

We are writing to request your assistance with finding a solution for the small number of Russian orphans who have already met and bonded with their American families, yet were not able to have their adoptions completed due to the Russian adoption ban. We understand that you will be meeting with President Putin in June during the G8 Summit. We ask that you prioritize this issue and seek commitment from President Putin to finding a humanitarian solution.

Politics between the United States and Russia have become personal to several hundred Russian orphans and the families in the United States hoping to adopt them. These are children without parents, families, or homes. Many are in need of urgent medical care; all are in need of a future filled with promise. These children have no voice. These children have already been promised homes in America, and they have bonded with these American parents. The Government of Russia’s unwillingness to allow their cases to be completed adds yet another trauma to their young lives.

We have met many of these families and spoken with them frequently. They remain completely dedicated to these children, and they are trying everything in their power to help them. Approximately 230 of these families had traveled to Russia before the adoption ban to spend time with the children with whom they were matched. These devoted families already think of the children they were matched with as their sons and daughters.

Mr. President, we must find a humanitarian solution for these children and these families. We were cautiously optimistic when the Government of Russia Congressional letter to President Obama on Russian Adoption Ban sent a delegation to the United States a few weeks ago, but the outcome of that visit was disappointing.

Dear Mr. Foreign Minister:

As you well know, the relations between the United States and Romania have become increasingly strong over the past decade and we look forward to connnuing to strengthen the ties between our two nations in decades to come. One area that has and will continue to be of great importance to us and the 215 Members of Congressional Coalition on Adoption is the safety and well being of Romania’s children. We applaud the Government of Romania’s work to prevent the abandonment of children and offer our continued support of your concerted efforts to move away from the use of institutionalization.

That being said, we remain concerned that according to your own estimates 86,000 children remain in state care. We strongly believe that the best interests of these children can only be served through policies and programs aimed at either timely reunifying them with their birth family when safe and appropriate or connecting them with a safe, loving and permanent family through safe and viable kinship and guardianship care, or domestic and international adoption. Interventions such as foster and day care are meant to serve as temporary measures while permanent placements can be secured. They are not and should not be relied on as long term alternatives to biological or adoptive parental care.

To this end, we urge you to reform current law in Romania to more fully promote and support permanent parental care for children. This reform process must include a reevaluation of your decision to remove international adoption as an important permanency option for children who cannot find permanent homes in Romania. While child welfare reform legislation was passed in 2004, it is widely agreed that the new law creates additional issues for abandoned children and as noted above, eliminates inter—country adoption as a permanency option. We continue to support your goal of developing a reformed system for international adoption, but the delay in reform should not occur at the expense of children already matched with adoptive families in the United States or elsewhere.

Please know that Romania is not the only nation faced with the challenge of securing a brighter future for its orphaned children. ln the United States, approximately 60,000 foster children are still in need of a permanent family to call their own. Because U.S. law remains focused on the best interests of the individual child, these children are allowed to be adopted outside when appropriate. As US. lawmakers, we are committed to doing what we can to remove barriers that hinder U.S. children from realizing their basic right to a family. We welcome your leadership in securing this same right the children of Romania and the world.

Dear Madam Secretaries and Master Administrator Designate:

As you are well aware, on the evening of Ianuary 18, 2010, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it would use its authority to extend humanitarian parole to those Haitian orphans with established adoptive relationships with U.S. adoptive families so that these orphans could travel immediately to the United States. We commend the Department of Homeland Security for making this policy decision and fully support your desire to protect the best interest of these most vulnerable children. What was and remains lacking two days after this announcement is the coordinated logistical plan needed to assure these orphans immediate safety as well as efficient immigration processing and evacuation to the U.S.

We appreciate that a limited number of cases with access to private planes have been processed and evacuated from the country, but clearly not all adoptive families are in a position to put forward these resources to ensure the safe and swift travel of these orphans to the U.S. Furthermore, DOS and DHS are urging families to stay where they are. We are concerned that without clear direction American citizens will put themselves or the children they are seeking to adopt at risk by attempting an evacuation of their own.

Over the past four days, we, along with several other congressional offices have been urging State Department, USAID and Homeland Security officials to consider the consequences of making this announcement without a plan that ensured safe and efficient processing and travel for these children. Despite our best efforts, over 350 American families are now desperate and many are trying to independently evacuate their children. At the same time, orphanage directors, who are lacking basic supplies such as formula an water, as well as the information and support they need to protect the children in their care, are leaving the orphanages in search of help.

In our view, the chaos that has ensued is a direct result of a lack of logistical inter-agency coordination, a lack of communication to the public, and ad-hoc processing of travel documents by the U.S. Embassy. Therefore, we are writing to ask for your personal assurances that the State Department, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Agency on International Development and the Department of Defense, puts in place a plan to directly ensure that ALL of the 600-700 orphans affected by Monday's announcement of humanitarian parole are safely and efficiently evacuated within the next ten days.

Dear President Medvedev,

We are a group of United States Senators and Representatives who focus on issues related to vulnerable children and intercountry adoption. We are deeply concerned by the recent incident involving Artyem Saviliev and his adoptive mother, and the concern it must have caused you and the Russian people. However, on behalf of thousands of Americans families who have lovingly adopted Russian children or hope to adopt children in the future, we respectfully request your leadership in ensuring that intercountry adoptions between our two countries — particularly those already in process — will continue.

The welfare and safety of children must be the goal and responsibility of all nations, We can assure you that many in the U.S. Congress are concerned by this case. lt belies the reality that tens of thousands of children are adopted successfully by American families every year, allowing them to thrive in loving homes.

We will continue to work with our colleagues in Congress on legislation and policy initiatives that help improve the adoption process and support adoptive families so that all children are ensured of protection. We will work with Secretary Clinton on such international or bilateral steps as needed to protect children’s rights and best interests. We believe children are best served when they may live in a permanent and safe family setting.

You have demonstrated your leadership in protecting children and ensuring that they live, grow, and flourish in permanent and safe families by maintaining intercountry adoption. We hope that adoptions between our two countries continue and stand ready to support such improvements as are needed to serve the best interests of the children and their new families.

Dear Secretary Rice:

We want to thank you for your commitment to protect children and their birth families by ` working to ensure that intercountry adoptions remain as an option for children who would otherwise not be placed for adoptions in their own countries. We would also like to strongly urge you to negotiate a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Government of Vietnam that addresses concerns surrounding the adoption system in Vietnam.

We strongly share your concern about reported instances of fraud and corruption within Vietnam’s adoption system. We share your belief that systematic reform and more effective safeguards are needed to prevent the types of abuses described in your most recent report. Further, we understand that greater cooperation of the Government of Vietnam will be i required to address these concerns. Nevertheless, we encourage you to work with the Vietnamese Government to implement proactive measures designed to guard against abuse. Such measures could include a thorough accreditation process for all U.S.—based agencies providing » services in Vietnam, increased transparency and accountability with regard to fees, and ` strengthened laws and procedures for prosecuting individuals found to be complicit in fraudulent behavior.

We believe that signing an interim agreement with Vietnam is consistent with your goal of moving toward a Hague-compliant system, provided that such an agreement would contain enforceable safeguards. We strongly support the transition to a Hague-compliant system in Vietnam. However, we also understand that the establishment of such a system can take years, and it is not in the best interest of children to remain institutionalized or homeless during the G period of transition. lt is our hope that a properly designed interim agreement could serve as a foundation for the implementation of a Hague-compliant system in the near future.

Madam Secretary, we appreciate the important work that the State Department has done in investigating concerns with the Vietnamese adoption system. lt is our hope that we will be able to address these concerns, so that we can continue to find families for these orphans. Accordingly, we ask that you work to resolve these issues and to secure an updated Memorandum of Understanding with Vietnam that ensures the integrity of international adoptions between our two countries.

Dear President Berger,

As Members of the United States Congress we are committed to eliminating the barriers - that hinder all children from their basic right to a permanent loving family. We are aware that the Guatemalan Solicitor General’s Office {PGN) recently took control of the Casa Quivira childrern's center near Antigua under the authority of a court order. We are writing to express our concerns in regard to this action and the potential for other similar raids on children‘s homes in Guatemala.

We support Guatemala`s efforts to protect the well—being of children through reform of the current system and implementation of the standards set by the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions through pending legislation.

Certainly, it is the government’s duty to protect the welfare of children in Guatemala if the care provided by its children’s homes is found to be negligent or detrimental. However, if the care in such homes, including that of Casa Quivira, is found to be suitable to the needs of children, we do not believe that seizing control as a means of preventing suspected corrupt adoption practices elsewhere is in the best interest of these Guatemalan children or the adoption process in general. During the reform process, we strongly urge Guatemalan authorities to avoid sudden unwarranted interruptions of established procedures because such changes can seriously and irrevocably disrupt the welfare of the children as well as the stability of the institutions caring for the children.

We respectfully request that you open the lines of communication to the prospective adoptive parents of each Casa Quivira child, detailing the status of their specific whereabouts, care and health. We ask for your leadership in pressing for a judicious investigation of each Casa Quivira child’s legal status and the timely processing of their anticipated adoption, should the child still be found to be available for adoption under Guatemala’s current law.

By Chuck Colson

Across America this Mother’s Day, sons and daughters will shower their mothers with gifts. But of course the most precious gift a mother can receive is the gift of life itself—a child from the hand of God.

One mother I know—a Christian woman and a personal friend—so treasures the gift of life that she has begun the process of adopting an orphaned little girl from Romania, a child with cerebral palsy many others would have chosen to ignore. After major surgery and countless physical therapy sessions in the United States, this little girl now walks with a walker. But equally as stunning as the physical strides she has taken are the emotional strides. It is no small miracle for her to begin to trust and rest in the love of a Christian home she now enjoys here.

But sadly this little girl is caught in a complicated web of international politics, one that, barring some kind of miracle, will mean that she will be returned in just over a year to a Romanian orphanage, despite the longing heart of her would-be adoptive parents. You see, in 2004, Romania issued a ban on all international adoptions. When that ban took effect, more than one thousand children were already in the process of being adopted by foreign families, including two hundred in the United States. Some of these children have already met and bonded with their would-be adoptive parents.

Dear Prime Minister Popescu-Tariceanu:

As Members of the United States Congress, we write to voice our concerns over the Romanian adoption authorities` recent announcement stating that they plan to reject the remaining unresolved international adoption petitions filed between June 21, 2001 and January 1, 2005.

The Romanian authorities' action fails to demonstrate that a transparent system was used to review the cases and process the adoptions that were qualified under special ordinance 121 prior to its suspension. ln addition, the action is adverse to the spirit and tenets of both international child welfare treaties to which Romania is a signatory, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Inter-country Adoption (hereinafter, "Hague Convention").

As you know, the founding principle of the Hague Convention is "that a child, for the full and harmonious development of his personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding." (Preamble) lt goes on to say that while international adoption is only appropriate after "possibilities for placement of the child within the State of Origin have been given due consideration" (Article 4; Subsection B), "inter-country adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her country of origin." (Preamble) This language is consistent with founding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As a signatory to the Hague Convention, the United States is in full support of the placement priorities that it outlines; reunification with birth family or relatives, domestic adoption, international adoption, long term foster care, temporary institutionalization. However, we cannot support distorting these priorities to favor the use of non-permanent domestic placements, such as foster care or institutionalization, over inter-country adoption.