developed in the various States, and committee relationships to the work of the voluntary agencies. These agencies were also represented at the sessions.

Responsibilities for liaison with the State committees were assumed by a special assistant to the Deputy Administrator. He published the monthly bulletin, kept in touch with chairmen and members by correspondence, answering their inquiries and directing their attention to developments affecting their States. When invited, he or others of the program met with the committees or gave special assistances requested. Of particular value to committees were refugee destination lists on a State-by-State basis, prepared and distributed previous to the arrivals of refugee ships. These lists, developed from information forwarded from overseas by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, showed the name and country of origin of the refugee, name and address of his sponsor, and the endorsing voluntary agency. Such information helped develop program interest on a State-community basis and public understanding of local responsibilities in resettlement.

Governors' committees ranged in size from 1 member to 54. The average size was 14 persons. Makeup varied. Some were essentially citizen groups, often with representation from various sections of the State. A member of the governor's official family was chairman in 25 States. Other chairmen were not connected with the State government, but some had experience in refugee resettlement. Several were clergymen. Subcommittee plans were tried in a number of States. One set up regional groups, another congressional district representations. County committees were named in one State, and mayors were appointed to head community subgroups in another. Some governors' committees considered public information to be their primary function. Others also made contacts with firms and individuals to sign up sponsors and to secure job placements, cooperating with and supplementing the efforts of voluntary agencies. Many governors followed the suggestion that one of their members be the head of the State's employment service. Committee secretaries assisted chairmen in 12 States. One worked nearly full time, loaned from a State agency. Several other secretaries divided time between their State position responsibilities and committee work. Only one State had a substantial appropriation of funds to aid committee work. Several had small funds, appropriated or designated by executive action. Members contributed to committee expenses in many instances.

Some committees sought to interpret and coordinate the efforts of agencies, groups, and interested persons; some directed special attention to adoptions, and the education needs of refugees. Included in many committees were representatives of church groups, private social agencies, veterans organizations, labor representatives and employers.

Because of the voluntary nature of governors' committee cooperation, no formal reports were required and no official summary of accomplishments is on record. However, the contributions of these groups were of vast value in assurance stimulation and should be recorded as a significant credit to the participating States.

THE ORPHAN PROGRAM

The orphan program in its essential concepts was a harmoniously working combination of immigration and social welfare.

Growth of interest in adoptions in the years prior to 1953 was remarkable and reflected a drastic change in attitude during the previous 2 or 3 decades. Adoptions in the United States had increased more than 80 percent during the 10-year period from 1943 to 1953. No longer were adopted children suspect and pitied; on the contrary, both the children and parents were accepted and approved. This increased interest had pointed up the needs of all children, both at home and abroad, and heightened the concern of Americans with such needs in relation to orphan children all over the world.

The popularity of adoptions had resulted in problems of supply and demand. Although the number of children in the United States who were available for adoption had increased in the years immediately preceding the enactment of the Refugee Relief Act, the rate of increase had not kept up with the demand. There were at least 10 times as many couples in the United States who wanted to adopt babies as there were babies to be adopted. Due to this situation Americans were turning to other countries in an effort to find children.

The outgrowth of the imbalance between the number of couples who wanted to adopt and the number of children available for adoption in this country, the difficulties with respect to admission of children adopted overseas, and the altruistic spirit in this country regarding the distressing circumstances in which many European and Asiatic children were existing contributed to the intense and continously increasing interest in the orphan program. From a somewhat slow beginning, when it seemed probable that the 4,000 visas would not be issued, the interest increased until it reached a somewhat frantic crescendo during the last 6 months of the life of the Refugee Relief Act.

As a knowledge of the orphan program became more dispersed, the requests for information, assistance, and for children, whom some prospective parents mistakenly thought the Department listed, mushroomed. The recognized voluntary agencies, church groups, State welfare departments and attorneys were overwhelmed by the

response.

Race and religion did not seem to be troublesome factors in the search for children. The applicants simply wanted children.

The originally suggested allocation of 3,000 visas for orphans was, in the enacted law, raised to 4,000, in order to permit the entry of Korean orphans, for whose benefit legislation had been introduced by Representative Francis E. Walter in H. R. 6411. (This proposed legislation would have permitted such orphans to come to the United States under the control of specified individual sponsors or private or public agencies, if they were ready and willing to assume guardianship over the homeless children and to guarantee that they would not become public charges and that they would be cared for properly.)

The orphans admitted by the Refugee Relief Act were not restricted as to country or origin and thus the orphan operation was worldwide in scope. During the first stage of the operation of the program, the need for certain changes became apparent.

Section 5 made available 4,000 nonquota immigrant visas for issuance to eligible alien orphans under 10 years of age at visa issuance

who were to be or had been adopted by United States citizens. Section 7 (d) (2), provided that no alien should be issued a visa unless he presented a certificate of readmission guaranteeing his readmission to the country in which he obtained a visa if it were subsequently found that he obtained his visa by fraud or by misrepresentation.

The latter provision had been construed as requiring such a certificate guaranteeing readmission to a foreign country in the case of an otherwise eligible orphan. Since the orphan phase of the program was worldwide in nature, the requirement necessitated negotiations with many countries. The certificates appeared of doubtful value in the case of orphans, in view of their ages and the fact that the considerations affecting their cases were quite different from those present in the usual refugee case. The proposed bill removed the requirement in the case of the visas issued to eligible orphans under section 5.

The committee was of the opinion that this impediment to the issuance of the special nonquota visas to eligible orphans was undesirable and might be removed without harmful effects. Therefore, section 5 (c) was amended to read:

The assurances required in this section shall be in lieu of the assurances required in section 7 of this act, and the provisions of section 7 (d) (2) shall not apply to eligible orphans as defined in this section.

This amendment, together with others pertaining to the act, was enacted as Public Law 751, 83d Congress, under date of August 31, 1954.

Eligibility requirements

A child qualified for a visa as an orphan only if the quota to which he would otherwise be chargeable was oversubscribed by applicants registered on the consular waiting list at the time his visa application was made.

A child was considered an orphan only if (1) he had lost both parents through death, disppearance, abandonment, desertion, or separation, or if (2) he had lost one of his parents through these circumstances and the remaining parent was incapable of providing proper care and had released the child irrevocably for emigration and adoption.

The issuance of visas to eligible orphans was not limited to any geographical area or nationality.

This law did not permit an unmarried citizen to bring an orphan into this country, regardless of whether such a child had already been adopted abroad or was intended to be adopted in the United States. Such children were eligible to apply for immigrant visas under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

The law further specified that no more than 2 orphans might be brought in by any 1 couple, with the exception that several children of the same family might be adopted, to preclude the separation of brothers and sisters.

Due to the possibility that adoptions under the orphan program might fail to materialize because of incompatibility or inability of the adoptive parents to meet the requirements of the courts in various jurisdictions for the adoption of children, the Administrator included in the regulations the requirement that the prospective adoptive parents should select a recognized welfare organization to underwrite their assurance of adoption and proper care of the orphan whom they desired to bring into this country.

In order to obtain recognition for such purposes, the welfare organization had to satisfy the Administrator that, in the event the adoption could not be completed, it would assume full responsibility for the resettlement or that it would secure the services of a State-approved child welfare agency, either public or private, for such care. The regulations prescribed that the assurance form be executed by a social or child welfare agency, either a national voluntary agency recognized by the Administrator to participate in the orphan's program, or an agency approved or licensed under State law to place children in the State where the parents proposed to institute adoption proceedings. The Administrator required that the endorsing agency assume responsibility for the giving or securing of supervision of the child in the adoptive home pending adoption, and for the care and resettlement of the orphan.

The Children's Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the function of which is to develop and maintain child welfare standards, served as consultants in the orphan program. The Bureau cooperated with the Department in maintaining liaison between the Department, the State welfare departments, and the voluntary agencies, and in promoting the orphan program by advising the State welfare departments on rules, regulations, and standards as to selection, placement, and proper care of orphans for adoption, under the terms of the act.

Release for emigration and adoption

The irrevocable written release required of the remaining parent, if any, by the act was a prerequisite to the issuance of an immigrant visa to an orphan, regardless of whether the child was in the custody of the remaining parent or had been released into the custody of a child welfare agency. Every release of an orphan for adoption in the United States had to meet the requirements of the governing law of the country of the orphan's residence and also had to be acceptable to the court prospective adoption in the United States.

IRP, as the investigative agency of the act, requested and obtained concurrence from the Senate and House Subcommittees on Immigration that in orphan cases the thorough investigation as contemplated in section II (a) of the act would be considered fulfilled if it were established that the alien was an orphan as defined by the act. It was directed that in any particular case, when the facts indicated that a more thorough investigation was required, a complete investigation should be conducted.

The vital role voluntary agencies played in making the refugee program as a whole, and the orphan plan in particular, a success cannot be overestimated.

Their activities encompassed the whole operation of the orphan program, participating at all points and levels, from sponsorship to resettlement, with the exception of security investigation and eligibility determination. The methods utilized in these activities varied in accordance with their facilities and resources. Participation at the local level was by cooperating branches, or agencies, or by volunteers of religious and nationality groups associated with the voluntary agencies for their mutual purposes.

Children's Bureau cooperates

In consultation with the Children's Bureau the agencies worked out the following sequence of procedures which was suggested to the

administrators of the public welfare agencies and the State director of child welfare in each of the 48 States: 19

1. The couple interested in sponsoring a child to be located overseas or one already known to them first sought the services of an available local or State agency licensed or authorized under State law to place children in adoption.

2. The agency explored with the applicants what it meant to adopt a child and especially one from another country.

3. The local agency sought the cooperation of the appropriate recognized national voluntary agency on behalf of the applicants and forwarded to that agency the available information and results of the preliminary contact with the couple.

4. If the child was to be located, the national agency, through its representative in a foreign country, took the necessary steps to locate and study one or more children eligible for emigration and adoption by the interested couple. When the child was known to the couple, the national agency obtained the social study of the child through its overseas representatives.

5. Some local agencies preferred to do the complete study of the adoptive home before enlisting the cooperation of the national agency, Where this was not practical, they completed the home study after the social study of the child was received from overseas.

6. The applicants then made their decision to adopt the child. Assurance forms were obtained directly from the refugee relief program, Department of State, or through the national voluntary agency. These assurances were executed by the applicants and endorsed by either the State or local agency and the national voluntary agency. Which agency endorsed the assurances depended upon the agreement between the State or local agency and the national voluntary agency. 7. Copies of the completed forms were sent by or through the national voluntary agency or the Department of State. National agencies required additional copies.

8. The Department forwarded verified copies of the assurances to the American consular office overseas where the application for a special nonquota visa would be made on behalf of the child. The Department also notified the endorsing agency who informed the adoptive parents and other interested agencies.

9. The local agency would enlist the cooperation of the national voluntary agency in arranging for the child's transportation.

10. The local agency carried out supervisory responsibility after the child was in the adoptive home, through the filing of the petition and until adoption is decreed.

11. The local agency forwarded a copy of the adoption decree to the national voluntary agency.

Seven voluntary agencies 20 were recognized for cooperation in international orphan adoptions.

The responsibility of considering the backgrounds of natural parents and prospective adoptive parents and the selection of homes for children who were the subjects of adoption was recognized as one which required the assistance of professionally trained and experienced child welfare workers which the voluntary agencies could provide. agreed that such agencies should handle the selection and legal processing of children abroad and their resettlement in this country on an

19 Child welfare offices for each of the 48 States and the District of Columbia, appendix, p. 133. 20 Recognized voluntary agencies for intercountry adoptions, appendix, p. 134.