What You Need to Know About the Department of State’s Annual Intercountry Adoption Report

The U.S. Department of State has released the 2016 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption. It’s a fairly dense document that provides statistics about intercountry adoptions that took place between October 1, 2015, and September 30, 2016, but don’t worry. We’ve broken the text down for you in a few short bullet points.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Department traveled to 30 countries and identified three challenges that affect intercountry adoption:

• Delays in the completion of post-adoption reports for children who have already been adopted. These reports serve to assure the child’s home country that they are safe and well. When parents fail to complete them, it may harm the country’s perception of the United States and its adoption practices.
• Concerns from other countries about unethical adoption service providers and the ability to monitor them. Just one bad experience with an adoption professional from the United States can cause a negative impact for all families hoping to adopt internationally.
• Concerns about the unregulated custody transfer, or “rehoming,” of internationally adopted kids

The U.S. issued 5,372 immigrant visas to children who were adopted abroad or who came to the U.S. to be adopted, a slightly smaller number than in 2015.
The remainder of the document reports on the number of intercountry adoptions involving immigration to and emigration from the United States, as well as which countries were involved. To see those charts, as well as charts requiring the average times and average fees for adopting from different countries, read the full report here.