With regards to how the laws are written, would you suggest we lower the standard of proof? Assume guilty until proven innocent? Where are you suggesting the line be drawn? (Not trying to be argumentative, rather just curious as to what your position is, exactly.) I believe the law was carefully drafted. Most are, with careful attention to every minute detail.

“Since re-opening adoptions to Americans, approximately 20 NOIDs have been issued, several of which were sustained. These NOIDs include those issued pre-Orphans First. As of November, there have been 11 NOIDs issued. When we reported that families were indicating over 20 families were in Hanoi awaiting visas, we were told that some families have received pre-NOID letters requesting additional information which were not officially NOIDS.”

Do you believe that 12 out of 13 criminals “get off” because something was wrong with the case and not because they didn’t do it? 12 out of 13 NOIDS reversed is pretty high stats and, if they did get off on technicalities, what does that say about the competentcy of those investigating? I know that if I failed to do my job well 12 out of 13 times, I wouldn’t have one anymore.

L

“Unfortunately, as news stories and blogs often reveal, the glowing report of an adoptive parent who successfully “brought home” a child cannot be taken as evidence that the adoption was ethical or fully legal.”

Has it? Please elaborate, because all I’ve read and heard are rumors and hearsay. Its all about as clear as mud from my perspective, and I’ve been driving myself nuts trying to find some actual facts. If you have some real solid evidence, please share. And I don’t believe “anonymous sources” making unofficial statements count.

I think we need to be careful about presuming that an overturned NOID means that a case was clean. NOIDs are extremely difficult to uphold which does not at all reflect their original validity or the lack of ethics under which an adoption was preformed. I don’t know about every single NOID situation but I do know a bit about a few and I can say with complete certainty that there was serious corruption involved at some level. Clearly not enough to allow the NOIDs to stand *legally* but those adoptions will never be clean, the corruption is still the corruption. I also know several people who are happy to share that their own adoption situations were corrupt and should have received NOIDs and even more people whose adoptions were clearly corrupt based on their own admissions but becuase they were issued a visa, consider all “forgiven”.

The Embassy has been pretty clear that just becuase people are coming home with babies does not mean adoptions are clean. This is, unfortunately, a byproduct of the way we have set up our own legal system. International adoption is complicated, legally.