Adoption

Alert: On Sept. 29, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Immigration Legal Resource Center et al. v. Wolf et al., 20-cv-05883-JWS, preliminarily enjoined DHS from implementing or enforcing any part of the USCIS Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements Rule.

On Sept. 29, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Immigration Legal Resource Center et al. v. Wolf et al., 20-cv-05883-JWS, preliminarily enjoined DHS from implementing or enforcing any part of the USCIS Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements Rule.

While the rule is preliminarily enjoined, we will continue to:

Accept USCIS forms with the current editions and current fees; and
Use the regulations and guidance currently in place to adjudicate applications and petitions. This includes accepting and adjudicating fee waiver requests as provided under Adjudicator's Field Manual (AFM) Chapters 10.9 (PDF, 2.55 MB) and 10.10 (PDF, 2.55 MB).

For more information, please refer to the Federal Register notice, dated Jan. 29, 2021.

COVID-19 Impacts on Intercountry Adoptions

Because of the current (COVID-19) pandemic, USCIS has received inquiries from concerned parents who are at various stages of adopting children from abroad and bringing children to the United States. We are committed to working with prospective adoptive parents to assist them as much as we can.

For more information visit the Adoptions and COVID-19 section on our USCIS Response to COVID-19 webpage.

Each year, U.S. citizens adopt thousands of children from overseas. This is known as an intercountry adoption.

Adopting a child from another country can be a complicated journey, and the information on this site is designed to help you as you move forward.

For USCIS’ policy guidance on adoptions, see Volume 5 of the USCIS Policy Manual.