Can One Parent Travel Alone?

Are you and your spouse in the throes of planning your international adoption trip and, for one reason or another, wondering whether both of you need to travel? Perhaps one of you has a work conflict, or there is a serious illness in the family. Maybe you’re having difficulty arranging care for your other children at home.

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Whether or not one parent can travel alone depends on the state in which you live and the country from which you are adopting. It can be confusing, so be sure to check and double check the answers that you get.

“The INS regulation states that when an adoption is completed abroad, parents must see the child unless the child can be readopted in their home state,” says Jan VanDrie of Adoption Associates in Jenison, MI. “The difficulty is that not all states allow children to be readopted. Michigan is one with a policy that discourages it. The Michigan courts recognize international adoptions and most do not want to burden an already-busy court system with readoption cases.” According to Van Drie, it is best to check with the probate or juvenile court in your county.

In addition, some countries require that both parents travel to finalize an adoption. This varies from country to country and from region to region within a country. Your adoption agency should be current on the policies of the countries they work with.

The adoption of the Hague Convention will mean that international adoptions finalized in participating countries will be recognized by the U.S. Readoption will not be necessary. Whether or not this will affect current states’ policies for allowing readoption in the U.S. remains to be seen.

Courtesy of Adoptive Families magazine

© Mary E. Petertyl