Adoption does not guarantee obtaining US citizenship: what problems can arise

International adoptions are fairly common practice, especially in the United States. But many adoptees face problems when they become adults. If the adoptive parents did not complete the process or did something wrong, then the child does not receive US citizenship, which promises problems in the future. Similar stories of the adopted children were told by the publication USA Today.

Photo: Shutterstock

International adoption does not guarantee citizenship

The National Adoption Board and others estimate that between 15 and 000 adults adopted as children by US citizens are stateless. But nobody knows for sure; the federal government does not track how many adoptees acquire citizenship.

A bipartisan bill currently under consideration by Congress will grant US citizenship to people who were adopted as children by US citizens.

In recent years, the life of adopted non-citizen adults has become increasingly difficult.

According to government statistics, over a million employers are registered with E-Verify, a web-based system for verifying employee eligibility to work in the United States. Thirty-five states require proof of legal status to obtain a driver's license, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And from October 2021, people will not be able to fly commercial flights if they do not have a passport or Real ID, which requires confirmation of permission to stay in the country.

Some adopted children do not have this proof.

“So you can't work, you can't drive, and you won't be able to fly,” said Joy Alessi, director of the Campaign for Adoptive Children's Rights. "It's a pretty big problem."

Diane Koontz, executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy, said that the situation is not resolved, "an absolute setback on the part of our government and ourselves."

On the subject: Oklahoma Boy Receives 5000 Adoption Requests After Touching Video

“Every child brought here for adoption and adopted deserves American citizenship,” Koontz said. “They are being punished for the mistakes and misinformation of the adoptive parents, lawyers and judges who oversaw the adoption process.”

Injustice

According to Koontz, Americans began mass adoption internationally after World War II.

Then the process was very different from today, and some of its provisions persisted for decades. Until 2000, children adopted abroad had to be naturalized. The combination of state and federal laws created a procedure for adoptive parents to follow.

Things didn't always go smoothly. Sometimes documents were lost. It has happened that lawyers, judges, or adoption agencies have mistakenly told parents that their children will automatically become American citizens as soon as the adoption is completed by the state. Or the parents did not complete the process.

Oftentimes, adoptees did not discover that they were not US citizens until they applied for a passport or student loan. Some learned about this when they applied for social security, entered the military, or were arrested.

In 2000, Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act, which allows children adopted from other countries to automatically acquire citizenship if they meet certain requirements. Then-President Bill Clinton signed into law. It entered into force on February 27.

An earlier version of the law applied to adult adoptees, but this wording was removed. Therefore, the law only applies to persons under the age of 18 at the time of entry into force and prospective minor adoptees.

According to Susan Sunkeum Cox, vice president of policy and external affairs for Holt International, adoption agencies, lawmakers and human rights activists intended to return and discuss citizenship for international adoptees born before February 28, 1983.

“Then 11/XNUMX happened,” Cox recalled. “And after that, any bill related to immigration lost priority.”

On the subject: Lost childhood and emptiness: why Americans adopted by children return to Russia

Alessi of the Campaign for the Rights of Foster Children was adopted from South Korea in 1967. She said that her parents always considered her a US citizen. When Alessi was 25 years old, she was denied a passport. Alessi did not receive US citizenship until April 2019, when she was already 52 years old.

“These are not adults who were adopted to get around the immigration system,” she said. “These are children who were adopted by US citizens as children. They came to this country legally. This is an injustice that has simply never been corrected.”

Federal legislation on granting citizenship to adult adoptees was introduced repeatedly, but unsuccessfully. Defenders say some lawmakers are reluctant to pass legislation that will affect the small number of adoptees who have committed crimes, and that efforts to address the issue of adoptees' citizenship have stalled amid broader discussions on immigration policy.

In 2019, Republicans Adam Smith and Rob Woodall introduced the Adopted Citizenship Act of 2019, which would amend the Children's Citizenship Act of 2000. According to the changes, citizenship should be granted to children adopted from other countries as children, but who were already over 18 years old when the original law came into force (that is, in 2000). The 2019 bill is co-sponsored by 94 other members of Congress—30 Republicans and 64 Democrats.

Senators Roy Blunt, Mazi K. Hirono, Susan Collins and Amy Klobuchar presented the Senate version of the bill.

In May 2019, the Senate bill was submitted to the Judiciary Committee, and a month later, the House of Representatives bill was sent to the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee. Since then, no action has been taken on any of the bills.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the US Department of State and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have said they cannot comment on the pending law.

Michelle Bernier-Toth, the State Department's special adviser on children, says intercountry adoption is "a top priority." According to her, the department is working to teach parents what they need to do in order for their adopted children to receive US citizenship.

According to federal statistics, the number of international adoptions has plummeted over the past two decades, from 22 in fiscal 986 to 2004 in 2.

“Our goal is to ensure that international adoption remains an option for children who have no other option for a loving family,” Bernier-Toth said.

Military adoption

For adoptive parents associated with the military, the struggle to acquire US citizenship seems particularly egregious.

An Iranian woman adopted at the age of 2, now residing in California, learned that she was not a US citizen when she applied for a passport at age 38. She was told to visit the immigration office, where she was explained that her parents legally brought her to the country on a visitor visa, but that this visa expired several decades ago.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York

“When you adopt, you lose everything,” she explained. “You are losing your native language, your ancestry, the religion of your ancestors. You lose everything through adoption and instead gain a new identity. And my new identity was given to me as a child. I'm American. This is my home".

The most painful loss for her, as for many other foster parents, was the loss of security. The adopted son asked journalists not to give her name, because she is now in the process of deportation.

The woman was adopted in a completely different period in Iranian history, seven years before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Americans who adopted her lived in Iran, and her adoptive father worked on the telecommunications system under contract with the US government.

The woman said that he was upset when he found out what happened to her. My father served 24 years in the army, left the Air Force in 1967 and died in 2001.

“He made more than one sacrifice for the United States,” she said. “This is such an insult to my father’s service to this country.”

For eight years, the frightened and angry woman kept her position a secret, for she considered her case to be rare. She said she applied for a U.S. visa through her mother in 2015. The mother died in early 2020. But the woman, now 50, is still waiting.

Deportation is rare

An ICE spokeswoman said the agency did not track the number of adoptees deported, but described it as "not very common" activity.

Adoptees for Justice, a human rights organization led by stateless adoptees, said it has been in contact with 47 adoptees who have reported receiving deportation papers since 1999.

ICE said in a statement that it “allocates the agency’s limited immigration resources with priority given to threats to public and national security, immigration fugitives and illegal re-entrants. However, anyone who violates immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest or deportation. "

Christopher Larsen, executive director of Adoptives for Justice, said many deported adoptees are struggling to find work and housing.

“They don’t know the country to which they are being deported,” he said. — Just like they don’t know the language or culture. And very often, the receiving countries to which they are deported, even though the adoptees grew up here in the United States, will not even recognize the deportee as a citizen of that country.”

On the subject: Sad statistics: calculated the scale of adoption of Russian children by foreigners

Anissa Drusedow was deported in 2006. She can describe her life today in one word: hell.

Drusedow was born in Jamaica. Her biological mother left her as a child in Panama. The girl was repeatedly sexually abused by her relatives and then placed in an orphanage. And when at 13, Anissa was adopted by a US Army sergeant and his wife, she thought she had finally found her happiness.

Drusedow has never questioned anything about her citizenship. When she was diagnosed with cancer as a teenager, her leg was amputated at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and Anissa was treated without problems in San Antonio for over a year. She got her driver's license, social security number, student loans. She never had a problem finding a job.

Her lack of citizenship was not revealed even in 1993, when she pleaded guilty to several charges, including forgery, illegal possession of a counterfeit instrument, and theft.

In 2004, Drusedow pleaded guilty to a third degree felony, according to federal immigration records. She said she worked in a home decor store and allowed someone she knew to repeatedly return stolen items without receipts.

ICE had already informed her that she was not a US citizen and she received a deportation order.

Druzedow, whose 12-year-old daughter lived with a relative while she was incarcerated, has hired a lawyer to appeal the deportation order. In March 2006, the woman was deported to Jamaica, a country she had not seen since she was 6 years old. Anissa sent for her daughter and they eventually moved to Panama.

Druzedow found a job and got married, but she says life wasn't easy. She helped her daughter return to the US to finish school, and they did not see each other for more than three years. Electricity and water in her home are unreliable. She said she used buckets to collect water to flush toilets and do laundry until Justice Services donated a generator, water tank and pump. Anissa said that her car was stolen - they put a gun to her head and threatened her with a knife.

The 50-year-old woman said she wants to return home to the United States.

“It’s just physically, emotionally and mentally draining,” Druzedow lamented. “Before, I wanted to fight, I wanted to do something. Now I just want to rest."

"I hope he doesn't leave"

Alessi, head of the Campaign for the Rights of Foster Children, said she is concerned about adult foster children who are not covered by the Children's Citizenship Act. She also worries about future adoptees from abroad, who are at risk of statelessness.

There are still loopholes in the law, she said.

The Child Citizenship Act 2000 streamlined the current system. But it only grants automatic citizenship to children whose adoption is completed in their country of origin. Parents who receive custody in the child's country of birth must complete the adoption process in the United States for the child to acquire citizenship.

The adoptee must be a lawful permanent resident to qualify.

Children who come here on a temporary visa, for example for students or for medical treatment, do not automatically acquire citizenship when their adoption is completed.

On the subject: How do children in the USA adopt from 15 years ago?

Cecile Pullman met a boy who became her son in 1999 at the YMCA camp in Vermont. Emil Albright was then 11 years old, and he came to the United States from a shelter in Romania.

“My daughter and I loved it immediately,” Pullman said.

She spoke to the man who arranged for Albright's trip to the United States, and they arranged for Albright to live with Pullman and her family while he goes to school. Albright returned to the United States in 2000 on a student visa.

Cecile and her then-husband applied for Albright's adoption in August 2001, shortly before the boy was due to return to Romania. The mediator warned her that she might never see Albright again if he left the country, so Pullman left him in the United States knowing that his visa had expired.

The judge completed the adoption on September 17, 2003, when Albright was 15 years old, as the adoption records show.

“I thought that if a child is adopted, he automatically becomes a US citizen,” Cecile Pullman was surprised.

Albright found out that he was stateless many years later when he applied for a passport. By that time he was already 23 years old.

Today, attorney Dan Berger of Curran, Berger & Kludt in Massachusetts said Albright has permission to work under the DACA program. Berger helps him apply for a green card. The process, the attorney said, could take six to eight years and would require Albright to return to Romania.

The young man is self-employed. A previous employer donated land to him to build a house in 2016. And now he considers Vermont to be his home.

“I hope he doesn’t leave,” Pullman said.

"I even lose my name"

For 40 years, he called himself Michael Libberton. A Florida man was raised by adoptive parents according to American traditions and values. Libberton, who was adopted just before his second birthday, said he hadn't thought about the fact that he was born in Columbia.

But in 2016, Libberton applied to Lake Technical College and there was a problem with his paperwork. Over the next two years, Libberton tracked records from his foster home to the Illinois town where he grew up to immigration officials. Thus, he learned that he was not a US citizen, although he had always considered himself one.

It seems to Libberton that he is losing his country, his identity, and even his name.

“You love this country, and suddenly it’s taken away from you,” Michael Libberton lamented. “All the rights you thought you had, you don’t actually have.”

Thousands of adoptees from other countries such as Libberton came to the United States legally as children and grew up considering themselves American citizens. They got their driver's licenses and social security cards, worked, started families and raised children only to find that they were unwittingly living a lie.

Libberton's journey to citizenship was incredibly painful.

Investigating his past, he learned that his adoptive parents never officially changed his last name to Libberton. The adoptive mother explained to him: she and her husband were told that all they had to do was bring the child home. Michael also learned that he once had a green card, but it has expired.

The first attorney advised Libberton to obtain legal status through marriage to his wife Taylor, who is a US citizen. The lawyer also said the citizenship process would be easier if Libberton reverted to his birth name: William Ortiz.

The 44-year-old man hadn't used this name since early childhood, he didn't even remember it. And this distinguished his surname from the surname of his wife and children. But he agreed to do it.

William Ortiz cringed whenever he signed a credit card receipt or other paperwork.

Libberton, aka Ortiz, said he and his wife felt uncomfortable when an attorney asked him to lie to an immigration officer about whether he had previously called himself a US citizen on his job papers and whether he had voted. They hired another lawyer.

The second attorney recommended Libberton to renew the green card he had.

On the subject: 28-year-old American gave birth to a child, conceived 27 years ago

Libberton understands that some may wonder why, being in this country for more than 40 years, he has never been interested in the status of his citizenship. As well as the fact that foster children cannot control the situation until it is too late.

“It’s not our fault,” he says, “because all our lives we were made to believe that we were someone when in fact we weren’t.”

He and others in such a situation have to deal with the consequences. They may be denied a driver's license, a loan, a job, medical care and the right to vote.

Libberton and his wife fear deportation the most. But they hope it won't come to that.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Six innovations immigrants should expect from President Biden

How Democrats and Republicans differ and who supports them in the USA

Why the design of passports of all countries in the world is the same

16 Green Card Lottery Myths

How to fill in the form on the green card: detailed instructions

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.