The Department of State (Department) and the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) advise U.S. families and adoption service providers of new information provided by the Haitian Central Adoption Authority, L’Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR). On March 31, 2016, IBESR indicated that it intends to process to completion any transition dossier filed by February 15, 2016, because IBESR has provisionally matched or plans to provisionally match, children with these specific U.S. families but final processing steps are still necessary before IBESR can issue an official referral.

Based on this IBESR announcement, the Department and USCIS believe eligible U.S. transition families that have not received an official match from IBESR by April 1, 2016 but have been provisionally matched or will be provisionally matched with a child, may still be eligible to complete their adoption processes as transition cases under the pre-Hague Adoption Convention procedures. We expect to receive additional information on these cases in the coming weeks, and will publish further information for affected families as it becomes available. IBESR reiterated their commitment to facilitating a smooth transition for families that began the intercountry adoption process in Haiti before the Hague Adoption Convention’s entry-into-force. IBESR also provided assurances that Convention adoption processing has commenced as planned and will continue while the remaining transition cases are processed. 

For further information regarding this notice, please contact the Department’s Office of Children’s Issues via email at Adoption@state.gov. For Convention case-specific inquiries, please contact the U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince’s Adoption Unit at PAPadoptions@state.gov or the USCIS National Benefits Center at NBC.Hague@uscis.dhs.gov. For case-specific inquiries involving transition cases, you may also contact the USCIS Field Office in Port-au-Prince at Haiti.USCIS@uscis.dhs.gov. Please continue to monitor our website for updates on adoptions in Haiti.