Mexico Adoption Process

Mexico Adoption Process

1. Application and Approval
To adopt a child(ren) from Mexico, please complete our agency application. For your convenience, you may access the application here. We will review your eligibility to adopt from Mexico based on the guidelines of Mexico’s adoption eligibility requirements once we have received your application. If approved, we will provide you with our agency contract that outlines our fees, services and important information regarding the international adoption process. Upon receipt of your signed contract, CAN will start to provide you placement services for children from Mexico.

2. The Paper Chase
Once your agency contract is in place, it is time to get started on your dossier. This will include a home study to assess your readiness for international adoption and help prepare you for adoptive parenthood, filing with USCIS for international adoption approval, and gathering your dossier documents. All dossier documents must go through proper notarization and state certification. Your dossier will be reviewed and assembled at our headquarters in Austin, Texas before being submitted to Mexico. CAN offers a complete Dossier Preparation Service to ease your international adoption process and give you peace of mind.

To ensure that prospective adoptive parents are prepared for their international adoption journey, our agency requires that parents complete 10 hours of adoption training as mandated by the Hague Convention. To satisfy these hours, we have developed an online parent training program that we are proud to include in CAN’s service plan.  For an overview of the program, please click here. Please contact your Adoption Consultant at CAN for more information about international adoption from Mexico.

3. Identifying a Child
Once DIF selects a child for you from the children available for adoption in Mexico, they will send information about your referral to CAN for your approval. We will notify you and send you all available information we receive about the child; we will provide translations as needed for any documentation.

4. Meeting Your Child
If you choose to move forward with your referred child, you will travel to Mexico to meet and bond with the child for 3 to 5 weeks per Mexico’s adoption requirements. One parent is required to travel and may only need to stay for 10 days. CAN will assist you with your travel preparations, schedule your flights and arrange all accommodations. We will also ensure that while you are in Mexico, an experienced CAN guide is with you every step of the way of your Mexico adoption process.  For more information about Mexico and travel tips, click here.

5. Completing the Adoption
Once you meet your child for the first time, the length of time between this initial meeting and finalizing the international adoption can range from two weeks to four months. Once the final adoption decree is approved and issued by the Mexican family court system, you will return to Mexico to pick up your child. Both adoptive parents and the child will need to remain in Mexico for about 7 to 13 days to obtain the child’s U.S. entry visa. We will also ensure that an experienced CAN Guide is with you every step of the way of your Mexico adoption process.

6. Post Adoption Requirements
You will be required by the Mexico adoption regulations to submit five post adoption reports over the first five months after your international adoption is completed. You will then work with your home study agency, which is responsible for filing the reports at six and 12 months after your international adoption from Mexico is complete, for a total of seven reports over your first year.

Children Available for Mexico Adoption     Mexico Adoption Requirements     

Mexico Adoption Timeline     Mexico Adoption Cost Overview     Mexico Adoption Resources