Nearly 100 Congress members are pressing President Joe Biden to get hundreds of children out of China after the country ceased all foreign adoptions.
The group of senators and representatives on Friday penned a letter to Biden on behalf of hundreds of American families in limbo over the status of their adoptions of children from China, which announced on August 28 that no more foreign adoptions would proceed. The families are now unsure if they will ever welcome the children they were promised months before.
“We express our concern for the vulnerable children in the PRC [People’s Republic of China] who have been matched with a permanent and loving home but remain separated from their prospective adoptive families,” the lawmakers said in the letter. “We request that you act in the best interest of these children and families by urging the PRC to fulfill and uphold the commitment the country has made.”
President Joe Biden speaks at a reception in celebration of Diwali at the White House on October 28 in Washington, D.C. Nearly 100 members of Congress wrote a letter calling for the president to negotiate adoptions between U.S. families and China.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Newsweek reached out to Biden for comment via email.
Historically, the United States and China have followed the guidelines under the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, and more than 82,000 children have been successfully placed in adoptive families in the U.S.
But now that foreign adoptions have ended, around 300 children who matched with adoptive parents in the United States are being held in China, and many could have larger medical and mental needs that need to be addressed.
“The American families that have been matched with their adoptive children are prepared to meet their long-term medical and emotional needs, and to give them the love and nurturing they need,” the letter continued.
“While these families have waited for years for their adoptions to be completed, they have become deeply bonded with their adoptive children. Many of these children know that they have a home, which in many cases have been prepared for their arrival since the families were notified that they were matched and moving forward with the adoption process.”
The lawmakers went on to say that these children need direct intervention from China to move the adoptions though, especially as reports from the Department of State indicate China may be continuing to approve adoptions to other countries besides the United States.
“Our hope is that American families will be provided the same opportunity and that the PRC’s participation in the Convention is not going to end with heartbreak for families who won’t ever be united with their adoptive child, and with vulnerable children left without the loving home that they knew they had,” the letter reads. “Your leadership could be life altering for these families.”
Robert Shapiro, political science professor at Columbia University, said the end of U.S. adoptions in China resulted from increased tensions between the two countries, and Biden could pull a lot of power when it comes to the adoptions waiting to get approved.
“It is well within Biden’s power to negotiate on this,” Shapiro told Newsweek. “It is striking that this has substantial bipartisan support and if Biden is not able to accomplish this, it can remain for the next president of either party to pursue this further.”
Kristin Stapleton, history professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and an expert on modern China, called what’s taking place a “tragedy” for the American families who are hoping to meet the children they matched with as adoptive parents.
“The Chinese government’s decision to end foreign adoptions is grounded on a belief that China itself now has the resources to care for orphaned children and that it is best for them to grow up in their country of birth,” Stapleton told Newsweek.
While many families in China are looking to adopt orphaned children, the timing of China’s larger decision is hurting hundreds of families who expected to bring their new children home this year.
“The timing of the decision—after some American families had already been told about the children assigned to them—was unfortunate and even cruel,” Stapleton said.
“I doubt it was intended as a deliberate slight directed at the U.S., however. As in the U.S., Chinese bureaucracies sometimes don’t coordinate with each other very effectively. I suspect that that explains why American families were still being matched with children as the decision was being made to end foreign adoptions.”
Despite the order to cease adoptions getting widely criticized, Stapleton does not believe the Chinese government is likely to change its policy and allow the children to join American families, even if Biden steps in.
“The Chinese government certainly doesn’t want to be perceived by its people as bowing to foreign pressure, especially from the U.S.,” Stapleton said.
