Standing in front of a Broward County judge in 1983, 4-year-old Christopher Larsson raised his right hand and recited the Pledge of Allegiance — a step to finalize his lengthy international adoption immigration to the U.S.
When he immigrated from Heredia, Costa Rica, to the U.S. in 1981, the young Tico — an affectionate Costa Rican term for native citizens — wore a navy and white Republic de Costa Rica T-shirt with black cobbled shoes.
But the four-year intercountry adoption process wasn't easy.
For his now 80-year-old adopted mother, Irene Larss, the adoption was a years-long process for which she paid $20,000, mainly in lawyer and immigration fees. With multiple home wellness checks, trips to Miami and several Broward County contacts that helped to expedite the process, young Christopher Larsson didn't receive his official U.S. certificate of naturalization until 1985 — four years after his mother started the process.
"I was lucky because his now-dad knew people in Costa Rica that made contacts, and plus, I worked for a man that knew people in Costa Rica, so I had contacts," Irene Larsson said.
And when she went to Miami to pick up her now-son, Irene Larsson knew to "come with her wallet."
Now, even if an aspiring parent can afford the thousands of dollars of immigration lawyer fees, 45-year-old Christopher Larsson worries that the Trump administration's recent crackdown of deporting immigrants will slow down lawyers, and they will instead put undocumented immigrants' cases at the forefront of priority, causing the already lengthy adoption process to multiply.
"It would probably slow down a process for those people that have their name on the docket, who've worked really hard to pay up the money to get their kid — to adopt a kid — and then their chance is delayed further and further because everybody else is putting them ahead," he said. "Putting somebody else that comes over here legally, ahead of it. I don't think it's right."
His worries come amid statewide removals of undocumented immigrants from President Donald Trump's pledge to carry out a mass deportation, and most recently, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum that Florida cities continue to pass that allows police officers to act as ICE agents.
As a result, worry among immigrants has been off the charts. In central Florida, this worry has taken form in anxious calls and distraught parents.
"People have been calling about Know Your Rights… People are just calling anxious, you know [asking] 'Should I send my kids to school?' and things like that," said Estefania Larita of The Immigration Advocates, an immigration law office based in Longwood, Florida.
While not specializing in the hague, non-hague or immediate relative processes — the three main adoption-based immigration paths to the U.S. — her firm predicts delays across the board, including international adoption, but not for the obvious reason: time restrictions.
The Immigration Advocates, which currently focuses on family-based, humanitarian and citizen-based immigration has experienced an estimated 50% increase of calls and cases, Larita said.
Despite full calendars, the attorneys are dedicated as ever to serving Florida immigrants.
"We're making time and room for everyone, you know, because we, obviously, we want to help the community that's very important to us," Larita said.
The attorneys instead expect all immigration processes, including international adoption, to experience delays because of scrutiny from Trump and Florida GOP leaders.
"Just from basic knowledge, if I'm adopting someone, then you need to start some sort of immigration process to bring them to the United States, right? So, in my opinion, that delay would occur in the immigration process," she said. "Everything we anticipate will slow down because things are held to a higher scrutiny when these processes are being adjudicated."
But data to confirm this won't be available for over a year, as 2023's annual report on intercountry adoption from the U.S. Department of State was just published in March.
The U.S. Department of State's 2023 report outlined specific events like the war in Ukraine, which delayed adoption after the Ukrainian government stopped intercountry adoptions during implementation of martial law, reinforcing this expectation of event-caused delays law offices like The Immigration Advocates have.
"The fear is definitely out there, and it's very prominent. I mean, I feel like everyone's experiencing it," Larita said.
As an immigrant from intercountry adoption, Christopher Larsson recognized that he could have come to the U.S. illegally and bypassed others waiting in the yearslong adoption process. But with that, he said he would have been the problem, not the solution.
The recent uptick in removals and immigration attorneys' casework is like a big gust of wind, he said, and once that wind comes, everything, like priority of immigrant's cases, is knocked down, scattered and scrambled.
"The best way to put it would be if you have an organized system, let's say paperwork, and a wind comes and blows it, then everything scattered around, and the most important thing of that paperwork was on the top," he said. "You're just going to try to get everything done, but it's obviously not going to be the same as it was before."
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