On March 14, 2019 the US Department of State released its 2018 annual report on inter-country adoptions.  The report shows that only 4,059 children were adopted through inter-country adoption between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018.  This represents almost 15 percent fewer children from the previous year and an 82 percent decline since 2004 when over 20,000 children had been adopted in the United States from abroad.  This is a new historic low.

This is very troubling since there are millions of children without families throughout the world who would benefit from inter-country adoption and there are tens of thousands of qualified American families who are willing to adopt them.  Unfortunately the United States is unwilling to work with many countries around the world to alleviate this problem which will only get worse.