Is That Legal?

Irish law generally prohibits foreign adoption (or at least makes it extremely difficult). Since these were "private adoptions," one assumes the mothers and children decaped to a Latin American country where such adoptions are both legal and easy to arrange. (Note: they are both legal and relatively easy to arrange in the U.S.) The choice of a third country was most probably related to the difficulty of securing pre-adoption visas for the children to the U.S. (as "intending immigrants" they would be refused entry); once adopted, presumably the Roberts obtained the usual immigrant visas for the children from the local U.S. embassy. It's a bit convoluted, but understandable, if you insist on adopting Irish kids.

"Irish twins" ?

*Two* Irish mothers? Something's odd here.

If it's illegal to adopt your kids to foreign nationals in Ireland, why then, were they transported out of the country? I would think that the Irish people would have a very good adoption program then.

Something smells fishy with the commenters explanation.

Why would someone "flea" Ireland to give away their child? Why woud two people do it?

I actually thought the same thing when I read they were, "from Latin America." Though just figured Republicans would not want to have brown kids from Latin America...

Presumably there is money involved.

The Boy's from Brazil.

Not sure about the other one.

Wild theory -- the Robertses saved these two children from being aborted.
The children's mothers were seeking illegal abortions in Ireland and someone on the pro-life side over there knew about it and intervened, convincing the mothers to go the adoption route. Now, why weren't the children adopted by someone in Ireland? Hmmm... there could have been money involved, as someone noted above. There could have been the idea that it would be good for the children to be adopted by some highly successful American lawyer. But this still doesn't answer the question of why the Roberts would go out of their way to adopt Irish kids.

The real explanation is probably much simpler.

No big de about money being involved -- that's pretty standard even here in the US where prospective adoptive parents often pay for all living expenses of a mother after she chooses them including a "spending stipend." And I just don't see what the big deal here could be -- even if they went out if their way for irish kids, do we really want to get into such a private manner as the precise reasons they chose irish instead of Bolivian, African, etc. Seems way out of line to me ESPECIALLY when the choice of when and WITH WHOM to have a children is a choice we want protected by the US Supreme Court. Eg Griswold v Conn, Roe v Wade, etc.

Perhaps the reason the NYT made the "INQUIRY" is that Roberts was supposedly distracted with this adoption business during the Florida recount, during which time he was part of the Bush-Cheney lawyering up. The inquiry could have just been to verify his "alibi." Again, it was an "INQUIRY"! Not an investigation.

See: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8681534/site/newsweek/

Dan Klaidman: There is some disagreement about how involved John Roberts was in the 2000 election overtime. He clearly spent a few days in Florida advising lawyers on their legal strategy. He's one of the most accomplished Republican appellate lawyers, so it was inevitable that they would have turned to him. But his name appears on no briefs and he was not in Florida nearly as long as many of the other GOP lawyers who signed up for battle. Last week I talked to many lawyers who were in Florida at the time. They all remembered that Roberts was there, but other than reading some of the briefs and giving some advice, he did not play a central role. Most also remembered that at the time, Roberts was preoccupied with the adoption of his son and that he was also busily preparing for an unrelated Supreme Court argument back in Washington. Ted Olson has also said that Roberts, along with about 20 other lawyers, participated in a moot court to help him for his oral arguments in the Supreme Court.

If it's illegal to adopt your kids to foreign nationals in Ireland, why then, were they transported out of the country? I would think that the Irish people would have a very good adoption program then. - smallfish

They might not. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it ought to be illegal or that the law is doing more harm than good. And Republicans would be the first to admit this sort of thing.

OTOH, what Roberts did clearly subverted the law of a sovereign country which should call into question his respect for the rule of law. This is a very fair line of questioning. For instance: one can question him as far as the degree to which , should Roe v. Wade be overturned, the federal government ought to regulate the ability of people to go from one state to another to obtain abortions -- does this subvert the laws of a state? is the commerce clause applicable? in the case where a state has a restriction on abortions even when health/life is an issue, would the fact that a rich woman could cross state lines and not a poor one mean that equal protection is an issue? And why cannot a US citizen smoke a cuban cigar even outside of the US? And, of course, how does oberts experiences subverting Irish law (in a manner which even the lower middle classes could not afford to do: should richer people be allowed to get away with more than poorer people?) color his opinion of subversion of the laws?

It might not be right to disqualify Roberts because of the adoptions, but it does raise questions about his legal reasoning if he was involved in subverting a law.

BTW - I wanna see a party line vote. What do Dems. have to gain by voting for the guy? A filibuster is one thing, but a vote is a vote and Dems. need to learn to show some spine. Also -- what is the deal with the Patriot act? Did not Senate Dems. vote against it? Why not?

You know that this will be used against the Dems. Look at how the Republicans used Kerry's support (ummm ... quote/unquote) of the war against him ...

I'm the adoptive father of an African-American daughter arranged through a state agency. White couples, I've observed, overwhelmingly prefer to adopt white children. They may go to great lengths to achieve this goal, including spending >$15,000 per child to adopt internationally versus being paid to adopt domestically through a child welfare agency. (White children to adopt are generally harder to find domestically, unless arranged privately.)

If someone did indeed go to great lengths to adopt white children, it might suggest they have different attitudes towards people of different skin colors.

My issue is this:

Why go out of your way and skirt the law to adopt kids from Ireland?

Unlike Russia or China, Ireland is a fairly wealthy, safe, clean country. Surely, their are plenty of good homes available there. So if your motives are charitable, why not take a kid from Russia or China?

If you just want a white kid (not judging here, I understand it can be difficult to cross racial lines), Russia or any other former east-bloc country would do.

If you just want a white-non-Eastern bloc-kid, there are plenty of them here. Even if you wanted an Irish kid, to maintain your heritage or something (is Roberts Irish?), the USA is full of Irish (especially around st. paddy's day).

If you just want to save a kid from an abortion, there are alot of those going on right here and many Christian adoption agencies designed to facilitate those adoptions. Surely, wealthy upstanding citizens like Roberts would have an easy go of it.

And a local adoption could not cost as much as this shifty Ireland-to-south america-then back home deal. Hell, a Chinese adoption wouldn't cost that much. And these guys have enough cash that the cost really is not a good reason to be skirting the law.

So I still don't understand: Why go to Ireland?

You are so spot on, DAS. That an American would subvert the laws of Ireland - which forbids abortion and adoption - is beyond the pale. He's not fit to be on the bench.

For that matter, I worked in humanitarian relief efforts. I gave comfort to people who betrayed Iraq, Serbia, and a range of African countries. They were considered traitors in their own countries, and subject to summary execution.

Reckon I oughtta have my bar license pulled, for my utter disregard of the laws of more than a handful of sovereign nations?

I find this whole story to be creepy. Adoption is sold as such a "noble" solution to infertility issues that not many people really look behind how individual adoptions are procured. It seems most likely that Judge Roberts worked through an Irish or Irish-American child broker, sorry, there's no other way to say it, that had devised a "system" for adoption of Irish children via the relatively lax laws of a developing country, in this case El Salvador. This was definitely not an ad hoc event, adoption just doesn't work that way, particularly when one adopts not just one but two children in the same year who are themselves unrelated. Good fortune doesn't seem like it's the most likely explanation. Also, private adoption in general undermines agencies that go to a lot more effort to control the adoption process and the suitability of parents. It is the incidence of unsuitable private adoptions that is causing certain countries (like Russia)to limit the availability of all adoption of Russian infants.

Should any of this be an issue? Well, perhaps on two fronts it is at least tangentially related to Judge Roberts' fitness: first, did he really subvert Irish law, and what his level of recognition of whether he did or not? As a general matter, any judge who engages in illegal acts is suspect. Clement Haynsworth was denied a seat on the Court for a relatively innocuous slip up in not recusing himself in a case where he had a financial interest, even though it was undisputed that it was indirect and that he had no real knowledge of his putative conflict. Ditto for Abe Fortas (though I think the infraction might have been more serious).

Second, if Judge Roberts wants to veil himself and his private life in privacy over this matter, then I think it only fair to call him on how he views the privacy of other people -- and whether, exactly, they have the same right to be free of unwanted "government" intrusion into their private affairs.

Also, now we have a handy explanation for why Mrs. Roberts is so anti-choice: There'd be a lot more blond and blue-eyed kids available for domestic adoption if you could just enforce childbearing for women.

Of course, the bigger question is why they dressed that kid like that. Maybe time to call Children's Services?

The reason they might not have adopted domestically is that it is difficult for couples over the age of 40 to have U.S. born infants placed with them, particularly if they are not mixed race. They probably have good "contacts" given their respective professional roles (especially hers), and this was probably a very high cost option in order to avoid perceived issues with Eastern European and Russian infants, where, I presume, they would have been treated like any other couple.

One reaosn its difficult to adopt an Irish child from abroad is that there was a major scandal a few years ago, involving Catholic religious orders and unethical, to say the least, practices involving the adoption of illegitimate or orphan Irish children. The children often ended up in the United States.
There were issues of corruption, about poor or no oversight on the adoptive parents, and pressuring young and vulnerable mothers into signing away their rights. Bear in mind this was in the 1950s, so I'm not saying this is one of those cases. Whats weird though is that in Ireland we are told there is a shortage of children to adopt, which is why many couples there adopt children from Eastern Europe or Asia (such as my aunt and her husband). I think the NYT were right to be interested here.

Dermot, I have no doubt that there is a whole web of "informal" placement of Irish born children with Irish and American couples who have sufficient means to facilitate the process.

And the type of adoption "scandal" that you mention is almost de rigeur when it comes to international adoption, with countries shutting off access to native children as pride and economic development make it unseemly to native residents that they need to rely on outsiders to deal with orphans or adoptees. It is now impossible, for instance, to adopt from Korea and India, two places that were once awash in international adoptions. Now, people trek to Cambodia, China (for girls), Latin American countries (though some of these countries have clamped down) and former Soviet states, with Russia on the verge of limiting adoptions.

On the other hand, in fairness, Americans are very open to adoption, while those in many other places are not. I had a friend who adopted an Indian baby and was told even in the U.S. by Indian families that his adoption was not a good thing, because it meant he would have no karma. I'm not sure what his karma would have been in the orphanage.

Also, re adoption of African-American children: It is my understanding that unless a child is mixed race, agencies both public and private really try to place African-American children with African-American families. There is a whole history to the phenomenon of white couples adopting black children, with the National Association of African-American Social Workers coming out very strongly against such adoptions for a variety of reasons. Perhaps things have changed in the last decade.

But a lot of couples would adopt an infant of any race and would not adopt an older child no matter what the race -- it just happens that this predilection falls hardest on those racial groups with a disproportionately greater share of older children needing adoption.

"I'm the adoptive father of an African-American daughter arranged through a state agency. White couples, I've observed, overwhelmingly prefer to adopt white children. They may go to great lengths to achieve this goal, including spending >$15,000 per child to adopt internationally versus being paid to adopt domestically through"

I know some people who are in the adoption process.
As you say, in the US it is hard to get "white"
children and easier to get African-American or
"mixed-race" children. Russia and Kazakhstan
allow adoption from orphanages - however I think
typically those children are around 12-16 months,
which is rather different from getting a newborn
and may be a concern for some parents.

Many people feel they would like to adopt children
who, if not exactly resembling themselves, at
least have similar ethnicity. Other people (who
I admire greatly) have no problem adopting a
very different child. I think this is too
personal a matter to view it as in any way racist
- just as we wouldn't view it as "racist" for a
white man to choose to marry a white woman.

I think the costs involved for foreign adoption
can be up around $40K these days.

It will be interesting to learn more about the
circumstances of the Roberts adoption, but I'll
speculate that this may be an established legal
way to adopt newborn "white" children, strange as
it is. As for having two children less than 9
months apart, if you decide to start a family and
you aren't constrained by biology, then why not ?

I'm a father of twins myself and it's a lot of fun

Whatever happened, it's doubtful that someone of Roberts' legal acumen would have done 2 adoptions without dotting all the i's and crossing the t's. The fact that this story "broke" on Drudge should be enough to make everyone suspicious. If Roberts gets attacked over the adoption of his children, rather than the substance of his recorded legal opinions, it will smack of desperation and petty vindictiveness. It will backfire. It is a trap.

I know a little, just a little about adoption, having adopted my child from China. But it seems odd--there are usually social service agencies, accredited by the government, who would be involved in the relinquishing of the child. It sounds very complicated and open to scrutiny, though I don't automatically assume that anything was illegal. Just weird, very weird.

As the father of a beautiful Guatemalan girl, I think that you should all mind your own business. These are private family matters and the one thing that is certain here is that you are delving into matters that should be off limits to your speculation. I thank God that neither my wife nor I are in a public position where we would come under your microscope.

Namefornow's idea that these children were possibly 'save the fetus' adoptions is an interesting one. If Robert's is forced to "reveal all" (personally, I think this sort of outing is an infringment on the rights of these children, no matter what the possible perceived 'gains') and it turns out he DID 'save' these children, he'll get overnight Hero status bestowed on him by his Xtian extremists. Is this what we want??

the NYTimes got caught and anyone that defends them is as indecent as they are.

Period.

You do NOT destroy the lives of two preschool children who have lived with the only parents they know just because a "white" professional couple are unfashionably religious and hang with people you hate.

Hell, if the Roberts HAD adopted "brown kids" we'd be hearing the shrieks that the nasty Xtian white couple was abusing the kids by "stealing" them from their "heritage".

There is not enough profanity to express my disgust at the lot of those that think this is worthy of pursuit.

Hey, Dave and Darleen, I will make a deal with you: I promise to mind my own business in these "private matters" when I get some kind of comfort level that Judge Roberts will extend to me the exact same courtesy with respect to my own reproductive plans. Also, the issue of "extralegality" is always on the table when it comes to the confirmation process. It just is, as it always has been. It matters whether judges abide by the laws that they are being asked to uphold.

P.S. -- there are documented abuses in the area of international adoption. In Cambodia, for instance, there have been clear instances in which babies were taken from their mothers under duress or misrepresentation and placed with western couples. These matters should not be considered "private" just because they take place in a family context. Abuses along the same lines led the country of Romania to basically stop foreign adoption.

It's possible that Roberts or more likely his wife has dual citizenship through Irish ancestry. Which might create an additional angle on their apparent end-run around Irish adoption laws. If there is dual citizenship, then there's also the minor technicality of whether the parents have complied with US law when travelling abroad -- that the US passport must be used at all stages of the journey. Easy to verify with copies of the visa/stamp pages from their passports. If their US passport pages don't have stamps for Ireland, there is a problem.

Boy it sure must have been expensive to get a matching set like that. Still,

Well, it wasn't off limits for REPUBLICANS to suggest that John McCain's adopted daughter was actually his own part-African-American bastard, was it? Or, going back further, for Republicans to "raise issues" concerning the way Michael Dukakis said "my son" instead of "my wife's son from a former marriage who I legally adopted"? The, ehrm, outing of John Roberts' children will at least reassure the free-market conservatives; the Roberts wanted blond infants, and were perfectly willing use the markets to get what they couldn't produce at home. But it would be nice to know Roberts' judicial opinions about, for example, a gay male couple who wanted the same opportunity to share their good fortune.

Barbara--I believe Romania was forced to change their law because it looked bad for a potential EU state to be sending children to America, and not because of abuse.

There is corruption in international adoptions, which is why it's legitimate for the Times to look into the Roberts kids. But if you follow Traven's arguments in the Atrios thread, the Roberts aren't guilty of anything immoral or illegal.

Justin, you are probably right, but for a while, at least, Romania was like the wild west for international adoption. So there were documented abuses (basically, baby selling and coerced adoption), but perhaps that wasn't the primary reason for changing the law. Romania has a lot of orphans, and for a while, many of them were HIV+. I didn't know that Romania was on a fast track for EU inclusion?

> the NYTimes got caught and anyone that defends
> them is as indecent as they are.
>
> Period.
>
> You do NOT destroy the lives of two preschool
> children who have lived with the only parents they
> know just because a "white" professional couple
> are unfashionably religious and hang with people
> you hate.

A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States has the power to directly affect, and to destroy, the lives of all 296 million US citizens, and indirectly affect and possibly destroy the lives of all 6 billion citizens of the planet Earth. If one does not wish to have an intense level of scrutiny focused on oneself and ones family, one does not apply for the job.

Period. Anything else would be unfair to every Citizen of the United States.

Cranky

Barbara- There is no way that your interest in having access to abortion on demand justifies prying into this family's history. Are you saying that you are attempting to preserve your "right to privacy" by trampling on the Robert's rights? Regarding your comment about "documented abuses", do you also feel that because there are also documented cases of child abuse that all judicial nominees who are parents should be investigated as potential child abusers? I suspect that your prejudice only extends to conservative parents of adopted children.

Leave the kids alone. Let's find some other dirt to dig up instead. The kids don't deserve to be punished for the possible crimes of the parents.

Nobody is blaming the kids for anything. Do you think it was blaming the kids to point out that Zoe Baird's nanny was an illegal immigrant? Adopting Irish kids via El Salvador is ummm, kind of irregular. I don't think it's a main point of discussion, I think it's something that (a) should be put to bed by Roberts by explaining that it was in fact legal as far as he understood, because any judge who subverts the law for any personal or professional reason should have some explaining to do, and (b) that it is ironic, to say the least, that someone in his position would play the privacy card when it is pretty clear that he may be denying millions of people the same rights in their own lives -- and no, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with abortion, but with contraceptive availability, sexual predilections and all the other stuff that right wing zealots want to control. I am going to say this in caps so that you don't get confused: WE WILL ALL PLAY BY THE SAME RULES. IF SOMEONE THINKS THAT THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO A ZONE OF PRIVACY AROUND THEIR FAMILY ARRANGEMENTS THEY HAD BEST BE WILLING TO UPHOLD IT FOR EVERYONE.

Stop pretending like anybody has anything against their children. And yes, I happen to believe that international adoption is an underscrutinized phenomenon, at least in some cases, and I am not automatically of the view that "all adoptions" are better than the otherwise existing alternatives, even if, for the most part, in most places, that is the case.

As an adoptee, those of you defending this adoption abhors me. Defending an illegal adoption does not justify this man on the bench. To me these adoptions smell to high heavens. This is not investigating his kids. This is about investigating his moral conduct in procurring two children from Ireland via latin america. There is no explanation you can give to justify the purchase of two children from Ireland while circumventing the laws of Ireland.

For this reason, his circumventing the laws, he has no right to be on any court in the US let alone the Supreme Court.

We have every right to see the records and investigate these adoptions.

Anyone who knows anything about adoption knows that the Roberts' adoption is "fishy," which is why it piqued the interest of the NYT. Most foreign adoption programs do not allow newborns to be adopted, nor are infants generally allowed to go to "older" parents. At 45, to be able to adopt two infants in the span of a year, well, that's just unheard of.

Having said that, I'm sure the Roberts understood fully how to skirt the legal issues involved and didn't do anything that was "technically" illegal.

MMM,
AS AN ADOPTED IRISH PERSON I FIND IT BIZARRE THE INTEREST YOU HAVE IN THE BACKGROUND OF THESE TWO CHILDREN. DID YOU EVER STOP TO THINK THAT THE IRISH MOTHERS LIVED IN SOUTH AMERICA, OR MOVED THERE, WHY THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES, IRISH PEOPLE LIVE ALL OVER THE WORLD YOU KNOW, NOT JUST ON OUR OWN SMALL ISLAND, AND TO SUGGEST THEY WERE RESCUED FROM HASVING ABORTIONS IS FARCIACAL, IT IS VERY EASY TO TAKE A 1 HOUR PALNE JOURNEY TO THE UK TO HAVE SUCH AN ABORTION, MAYBE THESE WOMEN JUST WANTED TO GIVE THEIR CHILDREN A BETTET LIFE, PLEASE THINK OF THE DAMAGE YOU MAY DO TO THOSE KIDS, WHEN THEY LEARMN ABOUT THIS AS THEY GET OLDER, BEING ADOPTED CAN BE TOUGH TO DEAL WITH, AND ITS NOT A BAD THING THAT THEY LOOK ALIKE, AS I KNOW TOO WELL, COMING FROM A FAMILY OF BLONDE, BLUE EYED CELTS AND LOOKING SPANISH MYSELF. BE KIND AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS....

Under Irish system of adoption, both private placements and private assessments are illegal. Additionally the 1993 Hague Convention on protection and co-operation in respect of inter-country adoption, forbids any improper financial gain from adoption.

The (British) Sunday Times, this past weekend reported that there are apparently no records of Judge Roberts and his wife adopting these two children through official channels in Ireland and the matter is being looked into.

The circumstances of the adoptions certainly raise questions from the perspective of Irish adoption law and whether Judge Roberts and his wife have broken these laws, whether wittingly or not.

Barra

Yeah, you folks are reading into this way tooo much. Who cares if John Roberts and his wife wanted to adopt Irish kids? If I wanted to adopt, I would want to adopt Irish kids too. Why? I'm Irish-American. Given his Catholic roots, he (or his wife for that matter) must have some Irish ancestry.

And everyone must agree on one thing -those kids sure are cute. (and the boy was hysterical on that that one tv appearance.)

Many in our "civilized" society refuse to help single parents, referring to parents as "unwed" to show their extreme distain. They seem to believe that the children of single parents are "bastards" just meant to be separated from family and used for adoption. It's rather sick to think that the status of motherhood is so low that white moms and their "adoptable" babies are still being separated at birth and the babies sold. Even dogs and cats get to stay with their moms until they are older.