Adopted From Guatemala: How to Request Your Origins File, Birth Record and US Immigration Records (2026)

In short: If you were adopted from Guatemala, the official starting point is the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones (CNA) and its Busqueda de Origenes (origins search) service. It is free, it has an online application, and it is open to adoptees 18 and over (minors with their adoptive parents). CNA says its competence to safeguard records covers the period after the 2007 adoption law, so if you were adopted before 2008 under the old notarial process, give CNA every detail you have from your adoption deed. Two other records are separate and yours to request: your Guatemalan birth registration at RENAP, and your US immigration record at USCIS through a FOIA request.

About 50,000 Guatemalans were adopted to 19 countries abroad between the 1980s and the mid-2000s, according to a 2022 essay in Plaza Publica by Melissa Ramos. If you are one of them, you are probably trying to find three different things, held by three different institutions: your adoption file, your birth record, and the immigration file from when you entered the US.

This page covers what each institution publishes about how to ask. We read the CNA’s origins page, the adoption law, and USCIS’s records page on 24 September 2026. We cannot tell you what is in any file, or whether a record exists for you.

1. Your adoption and origins: the CNA’s Busqueda de Origenes

The CNA is Guatemala’s Central Authority for national and international adoption. Its Busqueda de Origenes page defines an origins search as the set of actions an adopted person takes to learn about their birth family and understand the circumstances of their adoption.

What the page says, point by point:

What the online form asks for. The form verifies your email with a six-digit code, then has four steps:

1. Personal data: name, place and date, ID document (DPI or passport), age, nationality, address, email and phone.
2. Adoption data (what you know): your name at origin, date and place of birth, your birth mother’s name (or both parents’), the date of the adoption, and the details of the escritura publica de adopcion (the notarial adoption deed) or related documents. It asks whether this is your first origins search and, for teenagers, the adoptive parents’ names.
3. Motivations: why you are searching, what you hope for, information about any psychological or therapeutic support you have, and anything else you think matters.
4. Documents: a legible copy of your DPI or passport (PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 10 MB).

The fields marked as required are your personal data, whether this is your first search, your motivation and the ID copy; the adoption details are optional. Fill in whatever you have, and look through the paperwork your adoptive family kept for the names, dates and deed details the form asks for.

No intermediaries needed. CNA’s current page says all its services are free. An earlier version of the same page (archived January 2023) added that lawyers, fixers, intermediary entities or third parties seeking profit are not necessary. That earlier version also told adoptees living abroad to file through the adoption Central Authority of their country of residence, or a Guatemalan consulate where none exists. The current page offers the online form directly.

The limit to know: adoptions before 2008

Most intercountry adoptions from Guatemala to the United States took place before the current adoption law, under a notarial process. The law, Decreto 77-2007, took effect at the end of 2007; our page on whether Americans can adopt from Guatemala today covers the moratorium and the 2008 transition in detail.

Two things follow from what CNA publishes:

• Its stated competence is for records after the law. CNA’s page says its competence to safeguard records is for the period after the law came into force. Article 29 of the law lists the registry the Central Authority must keep, including adoption files (expedientes de adopcion).
• It still asks about older adoptions. The form asks for the details of the notarial adoption deed, which is the document a pre-2008 adoption would have. So file the application whatever your adoption year.

We found no official page that says where every pre-2008 notarial adoption file is held today. We would rather say that than guess. If CNA’s unit tells you where to look next, follow that lead first.

2. Your Guatemalan birth registration: RENAP

Guatemala’s civil registry is RENAP. Plaza Publica’s 2022 essay describes RENAP as where an adoptee first finds the name or names under which they were registered at birth, and notes that people who did not obtain an ID document before 18 can run into problems getting a DPI or passport later.

• To request a birth certificate from the US, including for older registrations, see searching old Guatemalan birth records with RENAP and getting a Guatemalan birth certificate apostilled from the US.
• Article 7 of the 2007 Ley de Adopciones says an adoptee does not lose Guatemalan nationality; that law took effect on 31 December 2007, and we did not find an official statement on how it applies to earlier adoptions.

If the names do not match. Plaza Publica’s essay notes that an adoptee may have been registered under one name, adopted under another, and sometimes given a different date of birth. It describes the immigration institute (IGM), which issues passports, as the office that confirms identity when an adoptee has more than one name. We did not find an official IGM page describing that service, so ask at the consulate before you travel.

3. Your US immigration record: USCIS

If you entered the US as an adopted child, US Citizenship and Immigration Services likely holds an immigration record for you. USCIS says:

• You can request your own immigration records under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. Someone else’s records need their written permission.
• Since 22 January 2026, requests should be made online at first.uscis.gov, after creating a USCIS account.
• Ask for specific documents. USCIS says it processes requests for specific documents faster than requests for an entire A-File.
• Records more than 100 years old go through its separate Genealogy Program, which will not apply to anyone adopted in recent decades.

We cannot tell you what your file contains.

Getting ready

1. Collect everything your adoptive family kept: the adoption deed, court or notary papers, your Guatemalan birth certificate, passport copies, letters from the agency or foster home.
2. Request your USCIS record online, asking for the specific documents you need.
3. File the CNA origins application online with every detail you have.
4. Request your RENAP birth certificate to see the name and data under which you were registered.
5. CNA’s form asks about any psychological or therapeutic support you receive; have that information ready.

Sources, read on 24 September 2026: Consejo Nacional de Adopciones, Busqueda de Origenes page (current) and its January 2023 archived version; Ley de Adopciones, Decreto 77-2007 (Articles 7 and 29); USCIS, Request Records through FOIA or the Privacy Act; and, as a secondary source for context, Melissa Ramos, Como navega un adoptado por la burocracia guatemalteca, Plaza Publica, 17 July 2022. General information, not legal advice.