Shortly after I felt cautiously optimistic with the announcement that the Guatemalan Congress was going to push back the implementation of the Hague and perhaps the Ortega Law to April, 2008, the DOS decided that this didn’t suit them at all. They want Guatemala to stick to their initial implementation date of December 31st, 2007.

In their statement of November 8th, 2008 they say: “The Guatemalan Government has said it will assume its obligations as a Hague Convention member on December 31, 2007, a decision we support.”

According to Kevin over at Guatadopt “US Consul General John Lowell … is apparently requesting a meeting with all the Guatemalan parties in Congress in an attempt to strongarm them into not delaying Ortega and the Hague.”

Now what could possibly be the reason for not wanting Guatemala to push the date back? I really don’t believe it has anything to do with the protection of children. For the children in the pipeline right now, it means that the grandfather clause has to be a strong one and implemented effectively. That will be difficult while the whole system is undergoing a huge change to meet the December 31st deadline to implement the Hague Treaty. Pushing the date back will give Guatemala more time to process these unfinished cases, and perhaps put in place a central authority that will process adoptions transparently and fairly for the birth mothers, the children and the adopting parents; something PGN has not succeeded in doing.

We seem to have a serious issue of transparency here, transparency in the true intentions of the Department of State. One theory, presented by Susana Luarca of the Association for the Defense of Adoption, brings up racism. I quote:

“The idea of thousands of children coming into the United States from Third World countries, is not an easy thing to swallow. For those children, whose permanent families can afford to give them proper nutrition and good education, the sky is the limit. And that is exactly what the racist and the xenophobic cannot accept…

And in a follow up posting on the same page, Susana wrote:

“The constant and legal immigration of Guatemalan children is too much to bear. They would refuse their visas if they only could, but since there are laws that prevent them from doing so, beginning with the 14th. Amendment of the US Constitution, the US DOS and the CIS take turns in finding ways to limit the number of children being admitted into the United States.”

I’m not sure Susanna is right, but I will admit that it is a sad possibility.

It would be refreshing if the DOS would come forth and tell us what they really think, and what they are doing behind the scenes with regard to adoptions from Guatemala. After all they could be a fine example for transparency in process since that is what they are demanding from Guatemala.

photo credit