Interracial adoption, in adoption laws, refers to placement of children of one ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race. In the US context this means placing a colored child or a baby from a foreign country with Caucasian adoptive parents.
With the increasing number of parentless children, there is rising pressure on the child protective system to provide early permanent homes to such orphaned babies or minors. The African American and other black minority children have to wait far longer than Caucasian children for adoption, and are at far greater risk of never getting a permanent home. Among the many factors that contribute to such placement delays and denials of ethnic minorities, are racial and ethnic matching policies for child placement and traditionally discriminatory policies of placement agencies that discouraged individuals from minority communities from becoming either foster or adoptive parents. To address these issues, the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEP) was passed.
The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEP) prohibits adoption agencies receiving federal assistance or funding from delaying or declining the placement of a child into adoption on extraneous or irrelevant considerations or race, color and origin of the adoptive parent or child. In 1996, the Removal of Barriers to Interethnic Adoption (IEP) amended and reinforced the provisions of the MEP. The IEP mandates withdrawal of federal funds from agencies that delay or decline the placement of a child on ethnic lines. The IEP also gives the right to any aggrieved individual to seek redress of grievances in federal court against a state or other entity in violation of the Act.
This was followed by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which represents an attempt to address many of the outstanding issues in interracial foster care. It reduces the waiting period of a child in foster care before final adoption to a maximum of 2 years. This positive step at least tends to move a child nearer to permanent adoption.
However, Courts have held that in special cases, a commitment to a child's best interests may be a compelling reason to consider race, color, or national origin, but only if these factors are categorically not used to preclude the possibility of interracial placements.
Another legislation on interracial adoptions is the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), a federal law giving special preference to family and tribal adoptions of Native American children. Before its enactment, almost one quarter of all Native American children were removed from their parents' care and placed in foster care, through which some were only eventually adopted. The perception of the sponsors of the law was that the adoption of Native American children by white parents was not necessarily in the child’s best interests and was harmful to tribal membership. The law is intended to preserve Native American culture and to support an Indian child-rearing philosophy that relies upon the extended family.
(More: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/mepa94/index.htm
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/policy/pi/pi9523a1.htm
http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/adoption-and-foster-care-glossary-interethnic-placement-provisions.html
http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/adoption-and-foster-care-glossary-interethnic-placement-provisions.html
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/policy/pi/pi9802.htm)
| 
