August 11, 2002

Adoption dilemma: Cambodian orphan promised to 2 families

By Steve Friess, Special for USA TODAY

Two American families await word from the Cambodian and U.S. governments this week on which of them will be allowed to adopt a 2-year-old orphan promised to both, another heart-rending dilemma created by that country's messy adoption process.

The girl has a 3-year-old brother whose adoption also is pending, so her fate will determine whether the siblings are to be separated.

Mark and Neva Carlson of Evergreen, Colo., have expected to adopt both children together since being paired with them in October 2001. Ellen Skugstad of Seattle, at the time unaware of the brother's existence, was paired with the girl through a different U.S. adoption agency sometime last winter.

Skugstad has said she's willing to adopt a different child, but U.S. government officials say that would run counter to a decision not to initiate any new adoptions from Cambodia for now.

The case underscores the sort of corruption in the Cambodian system that prompted the United States to halt all adoptions from that country in late December, says Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Bill Strassberger. The INS took the action in order to investigate several allegations that children had been stolen from or sold by parents and sometimes had incomplete or forged paperwork.

The moratorium left hundreds of prospective American parents in the lurch, already paired with kids. Under pressure from Congress, the INS in March set up a task force to investigate and finalize those adoptions if no evidence of corruption emerged.

Most of those cases ended the way it did for actress Angelina Jolie, who adopted her baby in May after a two-month probe. The task force approved adoptions of 143 children into 133 families in that process, with 13 more expected to be finished within weeks.

There's no evidence that the children in the Carlson-Skugstad case aren't legitimate orphans, but the girl, Rath Lysna, was promised to both families. U.S. and Cambodian officials don't know how the mix-up happened, but the INS says it is leaving the resolution of the case to the Cambodian government. A preliminary ruling granted Rath Lysna to Skugstad and the boy, Kim Han, to the Carlsons, but that has been placed on hold while officials deliberate further.

Carlson, who has traveled to Cambodia twice and picked out the children last fall, is tormented by the wait. But his greatest frustration is reserved for the INS, who insists that Skugstad can't be matched with another child. "I want the children to stay together, but in order for that to occur, the INS has to make a request to the Cambodian government for that to happen, or they need to grant Ellen a new referral," says Carlson, 37, an executive with Nexstar Financial Corp. "It's a really tragic situation where they won't give (Skugstad) any other way. Either she adopts this child and splits up this family, or she gives up everything and abandons the adoption."

Skugstad did not return several calls for comment.

Strassberger acknowledges that "the simple thing would be to say, 'Give Ms. Skugstad another referral and keep the children together.' " But that would require opening a new case when the INS is trying to close out the present backlog and then work with the Cambodians to create a better process, he says.

That position upsets many adoption proponents. "There's no doubt that the bureaucracy fails to see common-sense solutions in this case," says Sean Conway, spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who has championed the Carlsons' case.  

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