Please help

The following is from an FCC email I received this morning.  This petition was created by my wonderful friends Di & Dave who are waiting for Sophie.   Please read the letter and sign the petition.  Thanks!

Dear FCC-SoCal Families:

I am writing on behalf of the FCC-SoCal Board of Directors to urge your participation in a national effort to help our waiting families.  Today, instead of the “red thread” of adoption bringing parents and children together, the tangled “red tape” of government bureaucracy may be keeping parents and children apart.  We join with the Joint Council on International Children’s Services and Adoption for All: The Fairness for Families Petition in this national effort to affect the necessary legislative and regulatory changes that will keep our waiting families on course on their adoption journeys.  (The JCICS is one of the oldest and largest child welfare agencies in the U.S. and is a “lead voice in intercountry children’s services.”  Go to www.jcics.org/I600A.htm.)  The Adoption for All Petition is being organized by FCC-SoCal waiting parents Dianne Pearce and David Yurkovich (see below).
 
The situation is somewhat complicated, but here is a summary in a nutshell.  In April 2008, the Hague Adoption Convention went into effect.  The U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) implemented new adoption regulations, which include many changes, including new paperwork requirements.  The new regulations apply to adoptions from China (and other Hague countries) UNLESS a Form I-600 or I-600A was filed before April 1, 2008.  USCIS materials indicate that these I-600A families will be “grandfathered” in.
 
Here’s where the problem arises.  For families that filed the I-600A before April 1, 2008 (known as “Transition Cases”), their approved I-600A is valid for 18 months.  Families may apply for only one additional 18-month extension (for a total of 36 months).  Notwithstanding the extension, more than 10,000 families may be unable to complete their adoptions within that 36 month period, potentially interfering with their ability to adopt.  We are petitioning to ask the USCIS to allow an additional 18-month extension (which they currently will not do).
 
Without an additional extension, families would be required to start the federal paperwork over again (using the new I-800 procedures).  As a result, waiting families may be required to acquire a new Hague-compliant Home Study (adhering to China’s new parent qualifications).  They may also have to switch to a new Hague-accredited agency.  Waiting families could also “lose their place in line” depending on how the other countries treat the Transition Cases.  (For more detailed information, go to www.jcics.org/I600APosition.htm.)
 
FCC-SoCal will be contacting our Congressional representatives and spreading the word to other FCC chapters nationwide.  Get involved and help to bring the waiting children and waiting parents together without further complications and delay.  FCC-SoCal member families alone have the potential of sending hundreds of messages advocating for these adoptive families to be.  Thank you.
 
Sincerely,
Jeri Okamoto Floyd, President
FCC-Southern California