MINNEAPOLIS, MN – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar issued the following statement in advance of National Adoption Day, which takes place each year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. National Adoption Day is a national effort to raise awareness of the more than 100,000 children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families. Klobuchar is the Senate co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption.

“As a former prosecutor in a state with a strong tradition of adoption and as the Senate co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, I know the power of adoption. I’ve seen it firsthand,” Klobuchar said. “On National Adoption Day, we honor the big hearts and hard work of adoptive families while focusing on how we can provide these families with the support they need and deserve.”

Klobuchar is a strong advocate for adoptive families and children. She has introduced the Supporting Adoptive Families Act to help provide pre- and post-adoption support services, including mental health treatment, to help adoptive families stay strong. In addition, Klobuchar authored the International Adoption Simplification Act to help siblings stay together during an international adoption and protect adoptees from unsafe immunizations in foreign countries, which was signed into law on November 30, 2010. She also introduced the Accuracy for Adoptees Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in early 2014. This legislation cuts red tape for adoptive families and ensures that corrections made to adoptees’ birth certificates by state courts would be recognized by the federal government. 

Klobuchar has also worked closely with adoptive Minnesota families to help them bring their children home from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Russia.

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