Well, I shouldn't say Doug is PASSPORTLESS...he DOES have a current
Tawainese passport...but, somehow I don't think that would be of help to
us trying to cross the border from Canada back to the U.S. again! The
folks in the Louisianna passport agency tell me that through the rest of
THIS year we can cross the border between Canada and the U.S. with just a
birth certificate...but.... I have had so much experience with the
INS (excuse me, the CIS) department in the past where one person says one
thing and another vehemently denies that is the way things are, that I
don't feel overly confident taking the New Orleans' person's word for it
that we can bring Doug back home without a passport. It would be
terrible to have to leave him in Canada!
(In case you are confused, we
are scheduled to travel to the Canada in one month, one week, and two
days to camp and horseback ride through the back country of the Rockie
Mountains with the kids' Texas grandparents. They are probably in better
shape for this trip than we are! I was appalled to hear Rayna
complaining of being too tired to walk any further yesterday when we had
to park two and a half blocks from the lawyers office...what will she do
in THIN air????!!!!)
Back to my story, though! We applied for a U.S. passport for Doug
several months ago at the same time that Grant and I applied to renew our
expired passports. Grant and I got our passports back almost
immediately....but nothing on Doug's. I was very careful to cross all my
t's and dot all my i's on his application (they MAKE you start all over
on a clean application if you even mess up one letter and cross it out!)
and I brought in to the post office every conceivable piece of
documentation and paperwork anyone might ever need to prove we adopted
him legally and brought him into this country legally (thus, he
SHOULD--theorectically--according to our present laws, be automatically
considered a U.S. citizen now). At least I THOUGHT I had provided every
conceivable documentation. Wrong! We got a letter from the passport
people Tueseday stating that they could not issue Doug a U.S. passport
without either a copy of the State law stating that adoption recognition
is NOT ALLOWED, accompanied by a statement from a lawyer confirming this
OR a final adoption decree or recognition decree granted by the state of
Missouri. Well! Missouri does not REQUIRE that an adoption that has
already been decreed as 'final' in a foreign country be reprocessed in
the Missouri courts. They automatically recognize such adoptions as
valid (however they do not generate any DOCUMENTS declaring such for the
individual). On the other hand, Missouri does ALLOW you to reprocess your
adoption again in this country if that is what floats your boat. (Eliminating our being able to now send the passport office proof that "our state does not ALLOW readoption/recognition.)
Considering that readopting Doug (or even getting a court decree stating
recognition) would cost us $1000 and was completely optional, we opted
not to do that two years ago. We were able to get him a U.S. birth
certificate without any trouble at all. He supposedly has automatic
citizenship. Missouri considers the adoption final--based on the
decision of the Taiwanese court...so, why spend the extra $1,000.
Ah...but herein lies the rub--so we now discover--even though Doug IS a
U.S. citizen, we cannot PROVE it! He can't get a U.S. passport (as
things currently stand) and CIS (formerly INS) doesn't issue an automatic
Certificate of Citzenship for children who enter the country on an IR-4
VISA as Doug did. Rayna entered on an IR-3 VISA since we WENT to China
ourselves to process her adoption. Children entering on an IR-3 VISA
began automatically receiving Certificate of Citizenships about SIX
MONTHS after Rayna came home. (Rayna missed that window...coming home
six months before the beauracracy caught up with the new laws....the new
law stated she was a citizen the moment she set foot on U.S. soil, but it
was some time after the passage of that law before the system changed its
rules to automatically send out Certificate of Citizenships to such
children. Rayna will never have one, unless we go through a lengthy and
expensive CIS process to get her one....Getting Darcy's Certificate of
Citizenship required over two years of processing time and several trips
to the CIS office over an hour's drive away. But, I am not worried about
Rayna not having this since I was able to get her a U.S. passport two
years ago--which in itself is sufficient proof of citizenship.) Doug,
however has neither the Certificate nor a U.S. PASSPORT. That isn't
good! He has absolutely no way on earth to PROVE he has citizenship
without one or the other. So, here we are jumping through hoops that we
were told (by a lawyer) were not necessary for us to jump through...we
are going through the Missouri courts to have Doug's adoption
"Recognized", so that we will have a DOCUMENT we can send to Louisianna
so they will issue him a passport. And, ideally, we would like to have
all this accomplished within four weeks! Talk about unrealistic!!!
Where there is a will, there is a way, though! I NEED all the documents
(Doug's Taiwanese birth certificate and the two adoption decrees and the
two relinquishment decrees issued by the Courts in Taiwan) being held in
the passport office in Louisianna in order to show them to the Missouri
judge....so, we are having the passport office overnight FED-EX them back
to us. Meanwhile I was able to track down a lawyer (specializing in
adoptions) that could see us within 18 hours! The winner was a fellow
who practices in the heart of downtown KC. Getting to his office was a
nightmare for this directionally challenged driver...and then parking was
non-existant! We finally found a pay lot two and a half blocks from his
office that only charged $6.00 for the two hours parking we needed. We
dodged forklifts and construction pitfalls walking to his office. We
passed some possibly homeless fellows enjoying the mild weather as they
sat perched high above the sidewalk on wall coming down the long stairway
from the police headquarters. An annoyed officer on his way up the steps
yelled at them, "Hey, this isn't a PARKING LOT!" . (The same two fellas were jovially lounging in the same spot an hour and a half later as we walked back to the parking lot...so, guess the policeman's irritation didn't affect them much!) We entered the
lawyer's office through a door that proclaimed, "Thirteenth Street Bar
and Grill". We turned right to an old-fashioned elevator, not left to
the Bar & Grill. When the elevator opened, it had an actual
doorman--dressed in T-shirt and jeans. It was interesting to watch him
crank the pulley lever to navigate the elevator from floor to floor. He
never seemed to be able to quite match up the door openings, so after
pulling open the grate safety fence and cranking open the outer elevator
doors, we had to step UP to get onto the fifth floor. We had already
discovered that the all the bathrooms in this building were locked, but,
fortunately, the friendly elevator guy had a key to them and opened one
up for the girls and I. Then we moseyed down the hall in search of our
lawyers office. We stepped through what seemed to be the right door.
Inside was a rather simple sitting area. Through an open door off the
sitting area, we could see a lady at a desk...even though she was clad in
a "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt, I thought she was probably the receptionist.
She was. But, before I could state my business, a fellow, who looked
like he was probably homeless, called out to me from an adjacent hallway.
Since he knew my name, I made a leap from my first assumption to my
second...this must be our LAWYER! It was! He was clad in tan crumpled
shorts, a matching crumpled camp shirt and there was a ball-cap crowning
his below the shoulder length thinning gray hair. His office was
comfortable (except for the heavy haze of cigarrette smoke!) and I was
amused to see the various momentos he had thumbtacked directly into the
paneling. The girls were perfect through the whole visit (sitting quiet
as two well mannered mice on the sofa at the edge of the room, playing
their game-boy and Leapster on silent modes). (Doug was at summer
school.) It turns out that though this lawyer's looks are very
laid-back, he seems to be extremely thorough and competent and
precise...and he also seems to be very good at working the system and
expiditing matters. He is going to have our case heard in a different
county than what we live in (there is a loophole for this), since there
is no way we could get a court date in our county for at least two
months. He filed all our papers this morning and we will definitely have
our case heard on the 29th...maybe sooner. There is a possibility that,
even though the dockets are full, there will be a last minute
cancellation on the 15th or the 22nd...in which case he will slide our
case in and give us a call to get down there ASAP. Even if our case
can't be heard before the 29th (which means we won't have the needed
decree in hand until July 3rd or 5th, we still (theorectically) should be
able to have Doug's passport in hand before we leave for Canada--this
according to the helpful lady in New Hampshire who was speaking for the
New Orlean's passport office....provided we overnight Fed-Ex the document
to the passport office.
birthcertificate. Suppose to be able to do so until 2007, according to
the passport office. But, irregardless, we NEEDED this passport in order
to ESTABLISH that he does, indeed, have citizenship. Easier to sort
through the snarls now, so soon after the adoption, than to try and
back-track and do so after he is an adult. But, it will make me feel a
lot more comfortable if we have it in hand BEFORE taking him out of the
country. Like I said before, it would be a shame to have to leave him in
Canada! ¶ 6/08/2006 08:23:00 AM
