Americans adopt 20,000 Russian kids

US authorities speed up naturalization procedures for foreign children adopted by American families. USCIS (Bureau of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) has stated that starting from January 2004, all the documents regarding a child’s naturalization will be processed within 45 days.

 It used to take up to 1, 5 years to legalize an adopted kid in the States, thus causing major inconveniences for the families.

Legally, a child is considered to be a US citizen from the moment of his/her adoption. Official statistics indicate that Americans have overall adopted about 21, 1 thousand of kids, reports ITAR-TASS. More than 6,000 of little Chinese orphans, approximately 4,9 thousand Russian kids and about one thousand Ukrainians have been successfully adopted by American families. Children from Guatemala and South Korea are also among the first five countries to have high statistics of American adoptions.  

Source: REGIONS.RU