China canceled these families’ adoptions, but they aren’t giving up

Heidi Snyder was sitting in the pick-up line at her youngest son’s school in September 2024 when an email notification appeared on her phone. The message was from the adoption agency that had been helping her family since 2019 with the process of adopting a little girl from China. The Snyders were among the hundreds of families who had been hoping to bring home their children after more than four years of delays.

“I saw the email from our agency, and I just kind of glanced at it, and I thought, ‘This does not look good,’” she said.

Heidi, her husband, Kenton, and their three sons had endured years of sporadic and often confusing updates from China, beginning in January 2020. That was the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the country paused all travel, including for international adoptions. But now, the adoption agency was telling the Illinois family that China had abruptly ended its international adoption program altogether. The government had not clarified what would happen to the 300 children already matched with families abroad.

As the Snyders and hundreds of other families around the world marked the fifth anniversary of the pandemic-induced pause that stalled their adoptions, advocates called on lawmakers to step in. Many of the waiting parents and adoption agencies are hopeful that President Donald Trump’s administration will foster renewed communication and collaboration with China on the adoption issue.

Advocating for unification

For three or so decades, China worked with international agencies to facilitate adoptions. The process required numerous approvals from the Chinese government and a family’s home country. In early 2020, the Snyders had recently been matched with their daughter, Willow, who was 2 years old at the time. They were waiting for their official invitation from China, which they called their “golden ticket,” so they could pick her up. They planned to travel in March during spring break so that their school-aged sons could go with them.

Willow, like nearly all children who are eligible for international adoption from China, has special medical needs that make it unlikely she will be adopted domestically.

“I think we both knew when we opened that email and saw her little face that she was our daughter, and we loved her from that moment on,” Heidi said.

Orphans with special needs in China who are not adopted internationally typically grow up in an institution without a family to support them as they enter adulthood.

Adoptive families that WORLD spoke to said they received sporadic updates from the Chinese government for four years after the start of the pandemic. The messages included assurances that the families would be able to bring their children home. In 2023 and 2024, a few dozen American families finalized their adoptions. The news in September shocked the families who were still waiting.

The Chinese government did not announce it was closing adoptions through the formal communication methods that had been standard practice since the international program began in 1992. Ryan Hanlon, president and CEO of the National Council For Adoption, said the news trickled down from the U.S. Department of State to adoption agencies and families.

“Eventually, the spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry did confirm that they were ending adoptions, but they still didn’t address these in-process cases,” Hanlon said. The United States has sent numerous diplomatic notes, but China has not answered questions about the situation.

In November, 103 members of Congress urged President Joe Biden to speak with Chinese officials to resolve the incomplete adoptions. That same month, then-Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., 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. Advocates are drafting a similar letter to Trump.

Congress has since confirmed Rubio as the next secretary of state. Though he has promised to be tough on China, he has not commented on the pending adoptions since taking office last month. After Trump’s inauguration, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called on the president to continue pressing China for answers.

China claims that international adoption is no longer needed because Chinese families are more capable of caring for orphans. “While that’s good news for those orphans, the country made a commitment to American families that’s not being kept,” Grassley said. China’s policy is not exclusive to the United States, but it affects American families the most. More than 82,000 of the roughly 160,000 Chinese children adopted internationally over the last three decades have joined American families, according to the U.S. State Department.

Hanlon, who adopted a little boy from China in 2018, said he hopes officials on both sides can work together to resolve these adoptions and reopen the program completely. “This can be a good, nonpolitical way that they can partner in serving the interests of children,” he said.

As a new administration takes office, he hopes U.S. authorities will also consider how to increase all international adoptions. The United States has seen a decrease of more than 90% in the number of international adoptions from all countries since 2008 when it joined the Hague Adoption Convention that set new standards aimed at preventing abductions and trafficking.

“They only seek to avoid what would be a bad adoption, but they never seek to encourage partnerships or work to help facilitate what could be very positive adoptions,” Hanlon said.

In recent years, China has prioritized domestic adoption and reported a drop in child abandonment. “There’s a national pride that’s involved in being able to care for one’s own children,” Hanlon said. But government data suggest the country still has more than 250,000 orphans. Of those living in state orphanages, 98% have severe illnesses or disabilities.

Moving forward

Adoption agencies in the U.S. are also calling on Trump to intervene. In the meantime, they’re finding ways to care for waiting families. Lifeline Children’s Services represents about 45 of the families matched with children in China, said Karla Thrasher, senior director of international adoptions. The agency has long offered counseling for families through and after the adoption process, and it now provides grief support.

“We know that after five years, a lot of these families are really grieving what could have been,” she said. Some, she added, won’t be completing the adoptions.

Thrasher said Lifeline hopes to resume its charitable operations in China and will search for ways to support children who leave institutional care without a family. China lacks many social safety nets for children who age out of the state care system, she said. The agency has also considered including in the waiting children’s files a letter from their American adoptive parents that they can read when they reach adulthood.

“We want these children to know that at some point in their life, there was a family that was pursuing them, that they were chosen, that they were wanted, that they were prayed for,” Thrasher said.

Aimee Welch and her family were matched in 2019 with a girl they planned to name Penelope. The Welches already had four boys, and they adopted a girl from China in 2017. Penelope was 5 years old when the Welches were preparing to bring her home in 2020. She turned 11 a few months ago. Last year, Welch felt certain their wait would soon be over.

“I was buying new clothes, because, of course, all the ones that we bought for Penelope five years ago … had been outgrown,” Welch said. They set up her room and registered her for school. “We genuinely expected that, after four years of waiting, it was finally going to be our turn.”

After the program ended, Welch and other parents, including the Snyders, launched their renewed campaign to find answers. Welch founded Hope Leads Home, a coalition of families who are working to bring their children to the United States.

“This time around they closed the door on us, and so we felt like we had permission to fight with everything that we could,” Heidi Snyder said.

Her husband, Kenton, agreed. “If I truly believe Willow is my daughter, I would do anything in my power to mobilize heaven and earth to bring her safely home,” he said.

Though 300 children is a small number in the context of global conflicts and natural disasters, Welch said completing their adoptions is an achievable goal for both countries. “This should be an easy yes,” she said. “This should be something that, despite the vast differences in political views between the U.S. and China, that we can all agree on: that children belong in families.”

As she and her family continue waiting, Welch said she is grateful that people around the world are sharing Penelope’s story and praying for her and the other 300 children. “They are people of infinite worth and value made in the image of God,” she said of the children. “And it will not have been in vain if we have grieved and worked, spent emotional and financial resources for five years, and we’re not allowed to bring them home.”