Russian adoptions are problematic even without international tensions

Four years after American adoptions from his country were outlawed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald J. Trump says he and Putin discussed the matter at the recent G-20 summit. Trump says Putin would like to open up the adoption pipeline so that “thousands of babies could be adopted” by U.S. citizens.

As with many political matters these days, it is unclear whether Trump and Putin will work this out anytime soon, or whether the two frienemies even truly discussed the subject. Either way, we should be careful what we ask for.

We have an abundance of babies and children here in the U.S. waiting to be adopted in a safer and less expensive manner than offered in Russia. As a family law attorney who has managed many difficult foreign adoptions over the past 17 years, I have seen firsthand many nightmare scenarios that have destroyed the lives of anguished would-be parents.

While Russia’s metropolitan cities may be modern, much of Mother Russia is archaic and third world — especially when it comes to adoptions. Because these adoptions so frequently go wrong in so many ways, I try to avoid participating in them. Even so, I constantly get phone calls from prospective parents desperate for help after being swindled by Russian orphanages. It’s heartbreaking, but once a family has signed and paid for a child, there is little that anyone stateside can do about it.

The list of problems is endless. Parents have received the wrong child or found themselves on the hook for thousands of dollars in additional fees. Scarier stories abound.

Although Russian orphanages are managed by the government, they don’t always follow whatever legal guidelines are in place at the time. For the adopting parents, that can sometimes pose a huge problem for which there is no recourse.

It’s a different world over there — adoptive parents are not allowed to see their child beforehand and medical and psychological information are non-existent. Most people wouldn’t buy a car sight unseen and without any background information, yet I’m amazed that they will agree to take a child into their home under the same circumstances.

Families have received children with physical disabilities or psychological problems, or the wrong age. In one recent instance, a Tennessee mother put a 7-year-old boy on a flight to Moscow by himself with a note that said she no longer wanted him because he displayed psychological issues.

These Russia-adopted children often are diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, or RAD, a syndrome from staying in foreign orphanages where they were neglected and abused. RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts.

But how bad can the kids be?

According to a 2008 ABC News report “From Russia With Love: Dealing With Difficult Adoptions,” “many adoptive families deplete their savings and cash in retirement funds to pay for the doctors, tutors, psychologists and therapists that their kids need.”

On Long Island, a judge hearing the case of parents looking to reverse the adoption of two Russian-born children, ages 6 and 8, who repeatedly threatened to kill the parents, the judge made the rare move of keeping the courtroom open. In explaining his ruling, the judge wrote that an estimated 20 percent of Russian children adopted in the United States suffer from developmental difficulties. The State Department does not keep statistics on this.

Although Trump said he would like to afford “thousands of families” the right to adopt from Russia, the actual number before the ban was much smaller — just 1,000 cases during 2012. In contrast, the U.S. has 112,000 children waiting in foster homes, according to a 2017 Harris poll.

Additionally, 28 percent of the children were under 5 years old and 50 percent were between 6 and 10 years old. So, adopting a young child is common here and it’s also less expensive. If you factor in airfare and other costs, a Russian child can run upwards of $50,000. Making a jaunt to Moscow isn’t just a few days; parents languish there for up to a couple of weeks each time they have to sign another round of papers.

Sometimes American laws can seem overly protective, but in the adoption realm we are fortunate to have strict guidelines allowing the release of medical and background information about the children. Half the states also have open adoptions, where both sides exchange contact information with each other and are available for communication until the child is 18. None of this is standard in an international adoption.

Again, the Harris poll tell the story — 64 percent of the people surveyed who knew a family member or friend adopted from the foster system had a very favorable/extremely favorable response, compared to just 45 percent for international adoptions.

So for anyone considering a From Russia With Love adoption, I’d steer them toward Love, American Style.