China’s adoption freeze

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: American families still fighting to bring their adopted children home from China.

Nearly five years after the pandemic began, around 300 —already matched with U.S. families—remain in limbo. China abruptly ended its international adoption program, leaving hundreds of cases unresolved.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Now, with a new administration in the White House, waiting families are urging President Trump to step in.

WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry has the story.

XIAO TANG: (Speaking in Mandarin) Mom and dad, thank you. I received it. I also read the letter. I hope to meet you soon.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: Xiao Tang is ten years old, and lives in an orphanage in China. The video is one of many his adoptive parents Meghan and David Briggs have received, thanking them for their letters and gifts. He ends by saying he hopes to meet them soon. That was in March 2024. One year later, the Briggses are still waiting to hear from Chinese adoption officials.

BRIGGS: We had a really nice rapport with them. After September, we’ve never heard anything from them again.

Meghan and David began the adoption process in 2018. They already had a four year-old biological son, but had long desired to adopt. David was adopted from South Korea when he was four years old, and Meghan has several adopted cousins. They interviewed several adoption agencies before selecting Living Hope Adoption Agency and applying for their China program.

BRIGGS: We just had heard from so many people that China's program was so reliable and so well established there was a lot of transparency early on with the process, and that helped build our confidence about what to expect.

By late 2019 the Briggses were approved to begin reviewing the files of children in need of forever families. They were hoping to adopt a child who was preschool age or a bit older. They also knew that adopting a child from China meant preparing to bring home a child with special needs, since most children eligible for international adoption have disabilities and deformities that make domestic adoption unlikely.

BRIGGS: We were open to either a boy or a girl, but we were excited when we came across on an advocacy site, a little guy who just sort of popped off the page. And when my husband came home from work later, I turned the computer around, I just showed him the picture and he said, “Oh, wow, that's my son.”

On the first day of Chinese New Year in 2020 they were approved to adopt Xiao Tang, who has cerebral palsy. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the family’s trip to China was cancelled.

Between sporadic updates from the Chinese government, the Briggs’ adoption agency coordinated an English teacher for Xiao Tang who also acted as a translator for their zoom calls. He was living with a foster family at the time and the Briggs received videos of him opening their gifts and reading their letters.

In 2023, Xiao Tang was unexpectedly called back to his orphanage and the Briggses received less frequent updates. Then last September, China abruptly ended its international adoption program without clarifying what would happen to the 300 or so children already in the adoption process.

BRIGGS: We understand, and we respect any country has, you know, they're well within their rights to close a program down if they choose to do so. But there was a lot of unfinished business. Children  had been told families were coming for them, and then suddenly that wasn't happening.

The Chinese government did not formally communicate it was closing adoptions. Instead, the news trickled down from the U.S. Department of State to adoption agencies and families.

MAO NING: (Speaking in Mandarin) The Chinese government has adjusted its cross-border adoption policy.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sept. 5 acknowledged the policy change and confirmed that the country would not send children abroad for adoption. Beijing says international adoption is no longer needed because Chinese families are more capable of caring for orphans and child abandonment has declined. Since the late 1990s, the country has been shifting away from an institutional care system to a family care model in which orphans are placed with foster families while they wait for adoption.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley.

GRASSLEY: While that’s good news for those orphans, the country made a commitment to American families that’s not being kept.

In November, 103 members of Congress urged then-President Joe Biden to speak with Chinese officials to resolve the incomplete adoptions. That same month, then-Sen. Marco Rubio condemned Beijing’s decision and called on President Xi Jinping to allow the adoptions to be finalized. In December, a coalition of 33 governors sent a letter to the White House asking Biden to intervene.

Earlier this month, 105 members of Congress sent a similar letter to President Donald Trump, asking him to step in. Waiting families told WORLD that days after the letter reached his desk, the Department of State asked each family to submit updated information about their cases and their waiting children.

HANLON: What we want is for the president and his team to reach out to the highest levels of government in China to say, let's make this happen.

Ryan Hanlon is president and CEO of the National Council for Adoption. While advocates have spent years reaching out to Chinese authorities without seeing any movement, Hanlon is hopeful that the Trump administration can get a deal on this.

HANLON: I think it can be a win-win. These children need a family. We have U.S. families that want to move forward and adopt them. This doesn't have to get caught up in bigger issues with tariffs, or, you know, other, you know, world stage issues.

While the Briggses wait to see what might come from Washington, their adoption agency encourages them to send letters to China.

BRIGGS: We send both a Mandarin Chinese and an English copy together so that he can read it in his own language, of course, but also has handwriting, which is far more personal coming from that. So that's what we have done, and we usually include a photograph or two. We have no idea if those are delivered at this point or if they're just tossed when they arrive at the front door. We don't know.

The family continues to pray for Xiao Tang, and hopes he knows they are waiting for him, as eager today as five years ago when they first met.

BRIGGS: We are not going anywhere, and as long as we are allowed to wait, we will. We promised this little boy a family, and his country promised him a family. We have the letter with their red seal on it saying that this was supposed to move forward. We are asking China to honor their word to their child, and we will certainly honor our word to him as well.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

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