Equal Protection of Transnational American Adoptees
By Jaehee ChongThis piece was originally published in the ImmigrationProf Blog.
Support this letter urging Congress to pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act 2021 and bring deported adoptees home.
People born overseas and adopted as children by U.S. citizen parents can face uncertainty or challenges to their citizenship years after living their whole lives in America, even to the point of being deported. Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a peculiar and often unnoted form of international migration. Its roots are found in the years immediately after the Second World War (Marijnen & Doomernik, 2016). Since then, the United States has been the most prominent destination country. At the same time, the only country that does not guarantee citizenship when U.S. citizen parents adopt foreign-born children.
The U.S. has received more than 500,000 intercountry adoptees during the last six decades with the promise to be a family by American citizen parents, and the adoptees have lived just like Americans. Now the international adoptees are adults or beginning to retire, but many adoptees face deportation due to lack of citizenship through no fault of their own. Twenty years ago, Congress tried to fix this problem by enacting a bill with the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 signed by the Clinton administration. The "automatic citizenship" provision of the CCA works toward keeping LPR children united with their United States citizen parents, despite the citizen parents' failure to comply with the current law (Romero, 2003). Therefore, an estimated 75,000 adoptees could obtain citizenship from 2001(Gossett, 2018). However, this bill has an age restriction; children over 18 years could not be covered. Since then, many adoptees have been in limbo, cannot apply for a passport, have limited jobs, can't get a student loan, and are even facing deportation, or already have been deported to the birth country just like many other undocumented immigrants.
Courtesy: Adoptees for Justice.
If the U.S. accepted intercountry adoptees as a true family, then adopted children should have the same rights as biological children. In particular, legal status is the most basic human right. When they adopt a child from overseas, the adopted parents and the receiving country's government must provide this essential responsibility. CCA 2000 in more depth, concluding that, despite its promise of permanently uniting citizen parents and noncitizen children, it does not protect an important group of noncitizen children from deportation: those who, as adults, have committed crimes. Adopted children should not be punished for their parents' failure to file for naturalization (Romero, 2003). All other countries' adoptees have as fundamental essential right citizenship once new parents adopt them, but the American adoptees who have been fighting alone for 20 years, and even now, are waiting for the bill to pass. Although they came legally to this country, they are still waiting for justice.
It is important to keep in mind that all adoptees in the world are people who have lost their parents once. Abandoned in some way, they have to live with this trauma experience for life. Even after meeting adoptive parents, they still carry these wounds. Deportation is another cruel pain for those who have left forcibly and grew up thousands of miles away without their will being reflected at all. In the complicated process of all adoption, the adoption agencies and the governments forget who the most important people are.
“The family is the fundamental unit of society and it must be safeguarded. Adoption creates a family and providing citizenship to all intercountry adoptees helps preserve the family.”
The Biden administration is trying to take one more giant step forward in delivering the promise that help is on the way. Going further, Congress should know how federal immigration policy impacts transnational adoptees and shapes their national, cultural, and familial belonging. The Adoptee for Justice is announcing exciting new updates regarding the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021 on March 4th (A4j, 2021). Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Congressman John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the bipartisan Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021 to provide U.S. citizenship to international adoptees brought to the U.S. as children but were never granted citizenship (Smith, 2021). Hopefully, this time, the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021 passes to reunite all international adoptees and families.
As the largest receiving country for adoptees should improve its adoption system and revise unjust laws with greater responsibility to equal protection. Adoptees have faced deportation, stripping them of their rights and into a lifelong cycle of the trauma of fear of deportation. As Hing pointed out, the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws over the past four decades should make us wonder about the cost we are willing to pay to enforce the nation's immigration laws. We should wonder not simply in terms of the billions of dollars spent on enforcement, but also in terms of the cost to our basic humanity (2019, p2). Nevertheless, this adoption of child migration is still unclear and unsolved. How should define family and citizenship balance of intercountry adoptees for all adoptees' social justice perspective?
Dear Community, please think about adoptees and please take a detailed look into the lives of those impacted by the adoptee's citizenship issue. The harsh reality of having the feeling that you are disposable, feeling lost, and having no hope. You can help sign the adoptee support letter urging Congress to pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act 2021 and bring our deported Adoptees home.
Read the full blog HERE.
SIGN the Adoptee Citizenship Act support letter today!
References:
Adoptees for Justice. (2020). Retrieved from https://adopteesforjustice.org/
Gossett, D (2018). ‘[Take from Us Our] Wretched Refuse’: The Deportation of America’s Adoptees. University of Cincinnati Law Review, Vol. 85, No. 1
Hing, B. O. (2019). American presidents, deportations, and human rights violations: From Carter to Trump.
Marijnen, S., & Doomernik, J. (2016). Baby Migration. AEMI Journal. Vol 13.
Romero, V. C (2003). The Child Citizenship Act and the Family Reunification Act: Valuing the Citizen Child as Well as the Citizen Parent. Florida Law Review, Vol. 55, No. 486 Penn State Law Research Paper. SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2713961
Smith, A. (2021, March). Reps. Smith and Curtis Introduce Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021.
Press Releases. Retrieved from https://adamsmith.house.gov/2021/3/reps-smith-and-curtis-introduce-adoptee-citizenship-act-of-2021
March 13, 2021 | Updated April 5, 2021