Of Legal Systems And Twitter

A right-wing American pastor is trying to facilitate the adoption of Ukrainian kids to the US. It's a bad time to be doing this, and he's the worst guy to being doing it.

"Adoption should not occur during or immediately after emergencies," says UNICEF. https://t.co/OktHW2kBdt

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) March 17, 2022

There are governments involved in this: Ukraine and Poland, to name two. Adoption is a government action. It must be allowed by the state, approved by the state, and conducted by the state. The idea that rich Americans just travel to foreign lands, scoop up children separated from their parents, and become their new parents in a thrice, or by dint of being rich Americans, is chauvinistic, arrogant, elitist, and just ridiculously ignorant. I have some idea what is required to adopt (family law knowledge, nothing more), and I know it’s not a matter of “I am a white male American here to save the foreign children.”

Here, let me very briefly explain:

There is no public knowledge that these children’s parents, guardians, or even extended family members are dead or simply just not with them right now due to war. But that’s not stopping Matt Shea.

Not exactly the language of the Uniform Family Code (which is not controlling here, but anyway), but close enough. Basically, parents who are not demonstrably dead, or have relinquished what the UFC (and American law in general) calls “parental rights,” can’t lose the right to be parents to their children. And without the loss of that right, adoption is impossible. The lesser status, guardianship, is also a creature of government. Can you be a guardian if your plan is to whisk the children to the other side of the world? No, that’s not what being a guardian means. That seems to be all Shea has to offer. Again, parental rights are the bar.

Either of those, needless to say, requires government action. A death certificate in one case, or a relinquishment of parental rights (or termination), which involves a court.

Without government action, Shea doesn’t leave Poland with those children, or enter America with them. Or any other country on the way from Poland to America. This is a stupid American white man who thinks God is on his side. Whether God is with him or not I truly cannot say, but it won’t be enough to make all the governments between here and there (including state governments in America which administer family law) lay down and let him do what he thinks God wants.

This is nothing more than the story of an ugly and stupid American. It is not a story of American hegemony or white American privilege. Mostly, it’s the story of American ignorance; his, and the people freaking out about this. You don’t have to be a lawyer to know this.  Just don’t imagine it’s up to white man’s wishes. There are multiple governments involved and, contrary to the Q-Anon fantasies we all seem disturbingly prey to, we can assume those governments have the best interests of the children at heart. That would not involve allowing Mr. Shea to put  these kids on a plane and fly them away.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.