Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson led the House and Senate in a bipartisan effort to involve the Obama administration in more than 900 adoption cases that are currently suspended by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Congresswoman Johnson, along with House colleagues, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), Collin Peterson (D-MN), Trent Franks (R-AZ), and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and James Inhofe (R-OK), have sent President Obama a letter detailing this crisis and urging the President to intervene directly with the DRC.
“We must do everything we can to unite these children with their adopted families,” said Congresswoman Johnson. “While many American families have completed all of the necessary legal processes, they are still unnecessarily separated from their adopted children. The decision by the DRC is devastating to the American families and the children, many in poor living conditions and medically fragile, while stuck in the DRC.”
In September 2013, the DRC suspended the issuance of exit permits for children adopted by any foreign parents, reportedly due to concerns about suspected malfeasance in the local DRC adoption process and lack of information about the well-being of adopted children after they arrived in their new homes. In advance of the first ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in August, the letter urges President Obama to use this event and the time leading up to it as an opportunity to press DRC President Kabila for a just and expeditious resolution for these children and their American families.
