INS orphan petition requirements

The INS orphan petition requirements represent the formidable legal barrier that Amir faces when he attempts to adopt Sohrab and bring him from Afghanistan to the United States. These rules, designed for orderly international adoption, become nearly insurmountable when applied to a child from a war-torn country with no functioning government, no death certificates, and no reliable records. The requirements expose the gap between Amir's moral commitment and the cold machinery of immigration law, and they ultimately force him to break a promise to Sohrab with devastating consequences.

Legal Framework and Initial Obstacles

When Amir meets with Raymond Andrews, an INS officer at the American embassy in Islamabad, he is told bluntly to "give it up." Andrews explains that the petition faces "significant obstacles, not the least of which is that this child is not an orphan" legally, because Amir cannot produce death certificates for Hassan and Farzana. Amir protests that "this is Afghanistan we're talking about. Most people there don't have birth certificates," but Andrews is unmoved: "I don't make the laws, sir. Your outrage notwithstanding, you still need to prove the parents are deceased. The boy has to be declared a legal orphan." The second major problem is that the adoption requires the cooperation of the child's country of origin, and since the United States has no embassy in Kabul under Taliban rule, that cooperation is "just about impossible." Andrews strongly discourages U.S. citizens from attempting to adopt Afghan children, advising Amir instead to "send money to a reputable relief organization" or "volunteer at a refugee camp."

The Lawyer's Assessment

Omar Faisal, an immigration lawyer in Islamabad, provides a more detailed but equally discouraging assessment. He explains that in the aftermath of a disaster—whether natural or man-made—it is always difficult to ascertain that a child is an orphan, because children get displaced in refugee camps or parents abandon them when they cannot care for them. The INS will not grant a visa unless it is clear the child meets the definition of an eligible orphan, and that requires death certificates. Even if the orphan status were clear, the INS prefers to place a child with someone in his own country to preserve his heritage. Furthermore, a child must be legally adopted according to the laws of his own country, but in a country in turmoil like Afghanistan, "government offices are busy with emergencies, and processing adoptions won't be a top priority." Even if Afghanistan got its act together, Islamic law (Shari'a) does not recognize adoption, making the process even more difficult. Finally, adoption agencies routinely send staff members to evaluate the child's milieu, and "no reasonable agency is going to send an agent to Afghanistan." Faisal concludes that Amir's best shot is to relinquish Sohrab to an orphanage in Pakistan, then file an orphan petition while the boy is in a safe place—a plan that requires a home study to ensure Amir and Soraya "aren't raving lunatics."

The Broken Promise and Its Consequences

Amir rejects the orphanage option because he has promised Sohrab he will never send him back to one. But when he tells Sohrab about the lawyer's suggestion, the boy panics, trembling and crying, "Please promise you won't! Oh God, Amir agha! Please promise you won't!" Amir cannot promise, and the ambiguity of his response—combined with his own exhaustion and the weight of the legal obstacles—leads directly to Sohrab's suicide attempt. The boy slits his wrists in the hotel bathtub, and only emergency surgery saves his life. The INS requirements, which seemed abstract and bureaucratic, have had a concrete and nearly fatal impact on a traumatized child. In the end, it is not the formal orphan petition that succeeds but a humanitarian visa arranged by Soraya's uncle Sharif, who works for the INS and uses his connections to bypass the standard process. The visa is good for a year, buying time for an adoption petition to be filed once Sohrab is in the United States. The system, designed to protect children, had nearly destroyed one instead.