Why is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) involved?
When you complete adoption of a child in a foreign country, that child is a citizen of that country. When you bring the child home to the U.S., you are bringing a citizen of another country into the U.S. From a legal standpoint, the child is immigrating into the U.S. and the USCIS regulates all immigrations. Therefore, to bring your newly adopted child into the U.S., you must comply with the rules as defined by the USCIS. These are not too complex and involve mostly filling out a number of forms. Refer to the section marked “USCIS” in the process portion of the International Adoption Get Started page, for a more detailed explanation.
