US Embassy Ethiopia letter to Agencies - extra requirements

a penny sa...

Joined on 07-19-2009

Atlanta, GA

318 Posts

6,208 Points

We received a notice from our agency a week ago letting us know that we may hear things about longer processing times for visas, but that we would not be affected because it only pertains to cases where the children are coming from one specific orphanage. Unless things have changed (and I hope not!) then this should only affect those who are adopting from Gelgela. Here is a letter our agency passed on to us about this situation:

Dear adoption agencies,

Recently, the U.S. Embassy has implemented several changes to the adoption visa process, including conducting significant additional review of each case and field investigations. In light of our findings, and recent serious allegations and news reports involving Ethiopian adoptions, we will require additional time to process each case from any agency in which the child was processed through Gelgela orphanage.

Effective immediately, the Embassy will require 8 weeks' processing time for each adoption visa case in which the child was processed through Gelgela orphanage. This means that families will not receive an immigrant visa appointment until 8 weeks after the complete case file is submitted to the Embassy. We will not accept incomplete case files in these cases under any circumstances. It is the agency's responsibility to plan family travel accordingly. Cases that have already been submitted will continue to be processed as previously scheduled.

For cases already scheduled (for which the Embassy already has the case file), those parents should expect potentially lengthy delays in the processing of cases involving children from Gelgela orphanage.

Sincerely,

Adoption Unit

U.S. Embassy

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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