ESKO, MINN. — It had been a long time since Kelly Black looked through the big cardboard box stored in the back of a closet.
There was the sweatshirt she had specially designed that would no longer fit Judah. Blue galoshes. A little baseball glove. Outlines of Mandarin characters to help their other kids learn the language. A stuffed lion that plays Chinese songs if you pull its cord.
Six years of hopeful purchases, ready for the day they could finally bring the little boy from the Chinese orphanage to northern Minnesota. Now the Blacks don’t know if they will ever adopt Judah, or what will happen to the boy whose picture is everywhere in their Esko home.
Chinese authorities announced a few months ago that they are ceasing international adoptions, ending a practice that has led to roughly 160,000 Chinese kids being adopted across the world over the past three decades.
The policy change — lamented by some, cheered by others — left about 300 U.S. families with a pending adoption in limbo. Nearly all of those children reportedly have a serious illness or disability, and many are older, like now-8-year-old Judah, who has Down syndrome. Those kids are unlikely to be adopted in their home country, experts say.

“No one is questioning China’s right to end the program,” Black said. “But if it’s going to end, then it should end well, and really with uniting the last 300 already-matched children with their families.”
Families like the Blacks are urging politicians, including members of Congress, governors and President Joe Biden, to advocate on their behalf. But their plight is subject to geopolitics they cannot control or fully understand.
Hannah Black, 10, started a card to the president on a piece of folded computer paper. On the front she drew a red heart below the words “Mr. Biden.” Inside she wrote, “Dear Mr. Biden, I have a brother in China named Judah (Ju-dah) and we can’t bring him home because the” ...