About 17 families working with a Scranton-based international adoption agency saw their adoption plans disrupted, perhaps indefinitely, on Friday when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning U.S. families from adopting Russian children.
The controversial measure takes effect on Tuesday and leaves in limbo Russian children who have been matched with American homes and prospective U.S. parents who already consider them family.
World Links International Adoption Agency, based on Jefferson Avenue, had about 17 matches upended Friday, including three families, none of them local, who had already been granted parental rights to their children by Russian courts, and a local family currently in Russia signed their intent-to-adopt papers four days ago, the agency's infrastructure director Tim Souslin said.
The future shape of those families will depend on how and when Russia implements the law.
"I don't think anyone actually expected this to go through," he said. "People imagined that this was more or less political grandstanding and no one was actually going to use orphan children as a political chip."
The U.S. State Department called the law "politically motivated" in a statement Friday.
"We are further concerned about statements that adoptions already under way may be stopped," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said, "and hope that the Russian government would allow those children who have already met and bonded with their future parents to finish the necessary legal procedures so that they can join their families."
If the law abruptly ends adoptions on Tuesday, it would contradict a Russian-U.S. agreement that was ratified this year and went into effect less than two months ago, Mr. Souslin said. The accord requires a year's notice before either country can suspend its terms so that adoptions in process can be finalized.
"For now, the families that aren't matched with the children, we're telling them that we'll switch them to other programs" the agency offers with other countries, he said. "For the families that are matched with the children, well, we have to wait and see."
Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey sent a letter to the Russian ambassador on Friday urging him to "do all you can" to convince Mr. Putin to reconsider his position.
When 11-year-old Kyle Rusinko of West Scranton read about the ban, he imagined Russian-born children like himself suddenly on a different path.
"He was pretty sad," his father, Mike, said. "I told him, 'Maybe something will happen.'"
Kyle was adopted as a 6-month-old in 2001 after his parents, too, went through last-minute bureaucratic scares that left them uncertain about whether they would be allowed to take him home until they were at the orphanage in Kirov.
Mr. Rusinko said he feels worst for the families and children who are waiting.
"In our case, we got a picture of him and a short video that we watched," Mr. Rusinko said. "My wife probably watched it 100 times.
"You already feel like he's yours."
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com