I800a

homeland_security_logo, a photo by Fingers SFV on Flickr.

I800a approval

I've been calling our officer for 3 days. I guess she got tired of hearing from me. The next step is taken and the Newport's are approved by the USCIS to adopt two children from The People's Republic of China. And just in time to beat the possible US government shut down. I'm sure if it happens it won't last long but I'm glad we won't we waiting for our US documents for however long the delay ends up being. I'm grateful for the speedup. If you remember we were not originally expected to receive I800a approval until April 18th. 

Once we receive our I800a approval from immigration our agency will be working to get us DTC (dossier to China). Its more complicated than putting it in the mail. All our documents we have been working on have to be:

1. Notarized (if not already). It does make a difference what state the notary is commissioned in on the next step. The notary has to have at least 9 months remaining on their commission as well. 

2. Then the notary's commission has to be state certified confirming that the notary who signed your documents is a valid, legal notary registered with the state by the Secretary of State which holds their commission (so maybe more than one SOS depending on where the documents where notarized). 

3. After that they have to be couriered (so as not to get lost) to the Chinese Consulate in Houston, New York or possibly Washington D.C. The Chinese Consulate authenticates that those are the official legal Secretary of States seals. 

4. THEN, our agency sends our dossier to China. 

Why are you doing all these steps anyway? Well, if you just write up a document and mail it to China, how do they know it's valid? It's not even from their own country. So first, you notarized each document. Then you state certified each document. The Secretary of State verified that the notary who signed your documents was a legal and valid notary at the time of signature.

But that's still not credible enough for China. The state's stamp of approval isn't enough to validate the document in a foreign country. So, you have to send your state certified documents to the Chinese consulate here in America to that the Chinese consulate can verify the validity of your state's stamp! Crazy, right? But that's the process.

There are 5 or 6 Chinese consulates in America (I forget the exact number). Each consulate validates documents only from certain states. First, you need to figure out which consulate has jurisdiction over which states.

(Thanks Courtney for the great website, china-adoption-online.com)