Actor Leonardo Daniel at a press conference in Mexico. (Photo by Jaime Nogales/Medios y Media/Getty Images) (Medios y Media via Getty Images)
In the middle of the show, there are love stories that abruptly collide with thorny social issues that go beyond the harsh reality experienced by thousands of couples who want to have children but cannot and therefore choose adoption. However, due to the bureaucracy, this is almost impossible in Mexico. The actor Leonardo Daniel experienced it first hand and was even suggested to buy a child.
More than 20 years ago, after having two children with his wife Lilan Davis, the actor and his partner set to work fulfilling an oath they made during their relationship: they would adopt a minor child. This is something she has always wanted and he was okay with it from the beginning of the relationship.
At first they thought of a little boy from Tibet. However, this region's cultural and traditional rules for the adoption process are very strict, as the preservation of identity in all respects, including religion, is conditional. After that refusal, they focused on a Mexican toddler.
Based in Miami, USA, Leonardo Daniel and his wife tried to adopt in Mexico without imagining how complicated the adoption process monitored and carried out by the National DIF is. Other factors perceived as inconveniences include the changes in administration, as it is a sectoral agency of the Ministry of Health.
“We could not. I won't tell you who, but the last council of a high adoption authority (here in Mexico) told us: “Look, don’t complicate your life. Go to Monterrey and buy a child in a monastery.” He told journalist Matilde Obregón on her YouTube channel.
Leonardo Daniel contextualized the socio-cultural situation of Nuevo León more than two decades ago, which gave rise to the phenomenon of selling and buying infants: “Back then, the girls in Monterrey got pregnant so as not to get into trouble.” They went to the monasteries, got their child and left him there. Then you went and told them, ‘Hey, don’t you happen to have someone who left you a basket with a child in it?’ And yes, they did.”
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The actor and his wife never followed the advice to buy a child because it was not only illegal, but was a crime that could be more serious because it involved U.S. citizens, because they risked being accused of human trafficking, organ trafficking or kidnapping.
The actor and his wife returned to Miami upset by what they experienced in Mexico. Actor and singer Carlos Ponce reached out to them and suggested the same agency that had helped him adopt two of his children. This agency operated internationally to triangulate the adoption with Moscow, Russia. A door was opened in the European country for Leonardo Daniel and Lilan Davis to become adoptive parents of a girl who was about to turn five. limit the age at which orphanages assume responsibility for minors and then send them to boarding schools.
At that moment, life conspired in favor of the actor, who, together with his wife, had already carried out all the procedures required by US law to adopt a minor of foreign origin. “He received the call to tell him that they should travel to Russia as soon as possible: (They told us that) there is a four and a half year old girl who lost the adoption process. Ah, because you have to make a judgment. Unless it is someone who already has the papers to enter the US, she will never be adopted. (…) My wife and I said: 'Things happen for a reason.'”
They traveled to Moscow three times to comply with the adoption procedure requirement established by Russian law. After their last visit, they returned to Miami with their new family member Lian. Today, as the actor tells it, this girl is a university student who loves literature and whom he admires and is proud of.
For Leonardo Daniel and Lilan Davis, fulfilling the oath was not easy. It took money, patience and culture shock Which was a bitter experience for them when the Mexican authorities ordered them to fall into the illegality of buying children.
Adoption in Mexico
Just over 20 years after the episode that Leonardo Daniel experienced when he faced the complex process of adoption in the country, the official figures of the National DIF for the period between 2014 and 2022 show this in detail 542 adoption applications were submitted and a total of 119 were processed, meaning 22% of applications resulted in the adoption of a minor.
Adopting couples are primarily looking for girls between the ages of five and eight. The National DIF reports that from 2014 to 2022, three out of five adopted women were in this age group. Likewise, couples looking for children value a maximum age range of eight years, since from 2014 to 2022 two out of five men correspond to the range of five to eight years.
According to the National System for Comprehensive Family Development (SNDIFC) guidelines The requirements for adopting a boy or girl are as follows: Complete the introductory adoption course, submit an adoption application (if you pass the introductory course), attend assessments and personal interviews that include home visits, and demonstrate legal viability (legal marriage, no criminal record, no problems with banking institutions). ), socio-economic (guaranteeing optimal financial solvency for the development of the minor) and psychological (that the adoptive parents are declared mentally fit to assume responsibility), which are assessed by professionals and placed on the waiting list.
The requirements seem low, but the process of these procedures is lengthy and complex, and also requires the constant provision of documentation as long as progress is made in the steps set by the authorities. The point of accreditation of legal, socio-economic and psychological viability is the most stringent, since it determines whether access to the application as an adopter is approved or not.