Local adoption agency tries to put an end to decrease in international adoption

In recent years, international adoptions have decreased significantly. If these trends keep up, in a few years we may no longer see any international adoptions. One local adoption agency is hoping to change that by getting this issue on the White House’s radar.

“It’s kind of like living inside a Hallmark Movie Channel,” laughed Nathan Guilliam, the CEO of Adoption.com.

Adoption.com is an Eastern Idaho adoption agency that has been around for more than two decades. It has now become the world’s most-used adoption site, with the largest online adoption community.

However in recent years, international adoptions have become severely affected. Since 2004, international adoptions have decreased by 80%. It went from having 22,989 adoptions in a year, to this years projection of 4,200.

“We’re experiencing a catastrophic drop, from our perspective, from international adoptions,” said Gullium. “If you follow the trend line down, that hits 0 by 2022.”

As adoption experts explained there were a few reasons how this decline happened, like China abandoning their one child policy or when Russia closing adoptions.

“But much of it has been the result of the State Department having unrealistic expectations of other countries, particularly third world countries, ability to provide same documentation to provide what we would provide in the United States,” explained Ron Stoddard of Nightlight Christian Adoptions.

The team at Adoption.com are doing their best to raise awareness of the issue.

“We’ve created a petition at petitions.whitehouse.gov,” said Gullium. “It’s ‘Save Adoptions’ petitions and we are promoting that throughout the adoptions community and every other place we can promote it.”

With their hope’s to get the White House’s attention.

“The White House promises that if petitions receive 100,000 signatures that the white house will respond,” said Gullium. “We believe that if President Trump looked at this, then it would be a priority for him and he would be supportive of this and help solve the U.S. international adoption crisis.”

Since the petition’s creation on Monday, it has already received more than 17,500 signatures.

Adoption.com believes that raising awareness of international adoption so it can help reduce the cost and complexity of adoption, help prevent child trafficking and that every child deserves a loving permanent family.

If you would like to help, Adoption.com says the best thing to do is sign the petition and share it among friends and family.