Luckily this is a fraction of what it costs some families to do international adoptions. Those guys have to spend about 4 times as much. On the other hand, fosters get paid to take care of a child and then get to adopt for free. This situation is unique. From a technical standpoint this girl has legally been "abandoned". Her grandfather gave us a notorized letter stating that we have guardianship, and then self deported... but it holds little legal value. She has the right to be given the legal designation of "special juvenile immigrant status" but to get that status plus the adoption we have to pay an attorney who can do both immigrant law plus family law $13k. It's hard to wrap my head around all this. Most of my life I have not been happy about there being illigal immigration going on. When it affects you personally and you see first hand how someone you love is affected, it changes you. Agreeing to adopt a 13 year old from Guatemala has been both the scariest and wonderful decision I ever made.