Sign the petition
We need 10,000 signatures by January. Right now there are about 400. An explanation is below.~ IAI
Russell David Green (Lim Sang Keum) was born to a Korean
mother and an American soldier and has lived in the United States for
over 30 years. He currently faces possible deportation to Korea – a
country whose language he cannot speak, and where he has no family who
recognizes him.
Russell arrived in Massachusetts from Korea as a 12-year-old boy,
but after only a few months, his “forever parents” returned him to the
adoption agency before his adoption was finalized. He was then placed
with a single foster parent living in Brooklyn, New York who exposed him
to drugs and abuse. Instead of facilitating a permanent family and home
for him as a U.S. citizen, the U.S. adoption system set him up for a
lifetime of addiction and vulnerability. It let him fall through the
cracks where he has lived under constant threat of deportation.
Russell’s story could be any intercountry adoptee’s story due to
insufficient U.S. immigration policies that fail to safeguard children’s
rights “to enter and reside permanently in the receiving State” (Hague
Convention on Intercountry Adoption article 18) and “to acquire a
nationality” (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child article 7).
Children do not immigrate to the U.S. of their own volition to be
adopted. They are transported through intercountry agreements that are
designed to ensure their best interests. Powerless, they cannot enforce
their rights and are therefore vulnerable to the neglect of a receiving
country and its adoption agencies.
Russell and other adult adoptees therefore struggle with legal
loopholes, not bad luck. Previous to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000,
adopted children were not automatically naturalized. A child immigrant
arriving to the U.S. became a permanent resident but might be rendered
stateless if the sending country revoked her/his citizenship or if
he/she was not registered in the country of origin. If the adoptee’s
status as a permanent resident was not converted to U.S. citizenship
prior to adulthood, then the adoptee could lose permanent residency for
infractions such as remaining out of the U.S. for more than 12 months or
voting in an election. Moreover, as a consequence of post-9/11 security
laws such as the REAL ID Act of 2005, adoptees who are unable to
document their identities struggle to access state-sponsored programs
and vital care.
Despite these legal entanglements, Russell’s roots in the U.S. run
deep. The U.S. is his home where his three children were born and where
an elderly couple who have known him for over 25 years regard him as
their son. To deport Russell is to break up his family, force him to
lose the only home that he has known for the vast majority of his life,
and to “return him to sender” to a country that rescinded its
obligations to him.
Please sign the petition.
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