Chinese Babies Sold for Adoption and Become Involuntary Immigrants

Another article documents how we become involuntary immigrants.

And how international adoption is child trafficking.

How a Broke Chinese Province Sold Kidnapped Babies to America for Adoption


And Obama said a lot of nothing about reforming the immigration non-system.

So, a stolen and sold baby from China could be deported back to China and, if she finds any relatives, she cannot sponsor them for an immigration visa.

Adopted boy at center of immigration dispute

The case is more than tragic, argued the Guatemalan ambassador to the United States — it's a symbol of the ongoing national and international debate about what to do with immigration policy in America. "We believe this is a very unfortunate result of the problems of immigration policy in this country," said Ambassador Francisco Villagran de Leon, who attended the arguments before the court and has been providing support to Romero. "Children of undocumented immigrants should not be given up in adoption just because they are here illegally." Romero was one of 136 alleged undocumented immigrants picked up at a raid of a Barry County chicken processing plant in May 2007 and later charged with various offenses related to the illegal use of false or stolen Social Security numbers. While Romero was in jail, her child, an infant at the time, was passed around among family members before eventually being adopted privately by the Mosers.

The full article is here.

Thanks to Ethica.

La MesaPatch's adoptee story problematic

This article bothers me a lot.

The story which put me on the defensive early into the article was this one:

His knowledge of American culture was even shakier. So when his first term paper in European history came back with a red-penciled B, the 16-year-old had no idea what it meant. In Korea, grades were percentages—100%, 90%, 80%, etc.
"I didn't want to reveal how stupid I was," said Spackman, who today turned 71 and Saturday was inducted into his alma mater's Hall of Honor. But a "beautiful blonde" nearby had an A, and "she's too pretty to be smart."
Spackman surmised that A stood for average—and B "must mean bad."

How cute! The socially inept Asian male who of course finds the blonde beautiful. Later the article says that he was rendered mute by a beauty queen (presumably white) so on TV he became the stereotypical bumbling dorky Asian kid. Awwww! What a heartwarming story!

It glorifies the 1950s and the Eisenhower era as some utopia. Remember the 1950s? Conform to white, middle class, hetero-normative, nuclear family ideals, or else! Forget about the codified racism of the era because we could leave our doors unlocked. Nevermind the establishment of the domination of the "military industrial complex" (Eisenhower's own words) that now is symbolized by firms like Haliburton. Oh, and remember the H-bomb and nuclear attack drills in schools? What a idyllic time that was!

It says that "in 1951, getting permission to emigrate wasn't easy." That's quite an understatement! In fact it was impossible. Racist quotas were in place from 1923-1965 which allowed only Europeans to immigrate to the U.S. And, only northern or western Europeans at that. No Italians, Greeks, Poles, or Russians permitted! (Western hemisphere (Latin American) immigration was unrestricted then but that's a matter for another post)

Other problems with this article:

• It does it does a lot to validate the model minority myth of the studious Asian who learns English in a matter of months and excels academically.
• It calls James an orphan although it says that he was separated from his mother.
• It presents success as corporate success.
• It presents racial isolation as a good experience.

Creating a Market

This post relayed this article. 


In related Ethiopia news is this post from the same blog.

JUN 3, 2010
BLESSINGS FROM ETHIOPIA
Heidi R. Weimer
http://blessingsfromethiopia.blogspot.com/

The elephant in the room for everyone primping themselves in this web site is the fact that the standard of living of the first world and the maintenance of that lifestyle is a direct cause of the misery for the rest of the planet. To then adopt from the world wrecked directly and indirectly by the policies, wars, sanctions, invasions, assassinations, and evil of an Anglo-American world system is adding insult to injury. Your battle starts at home; start waging it there and leave us alone. And stop begging for cash. It's really unbecoming of First Worldists. --Ibn Zayd

Mr. Zayd's posts are pointed and radical, and I don't know how he finds all the articles and blogs he reviews and rebuts, but I'm usually in agreement with his assessments. 


Furthermore, I'd like to unequivocally state that that international adoption is a market. I know I've stated this before, but this article just further proves that there's no doubt about this. When adopters find the requirements or fees not to their liking in one country, or those countries close their programs because the corruption has become so rampant and obvious that it can no longer keep up the pretense that it is benefit children any longer, adopters move on to the next country. They shop adoption agencies, too. If one scrutinizes too closely or decides that its ethics will only allow a certain profile of people to adopt, then they shop around for another, more accommodating agency. Despite the feelings of adopters who feel that they are over-burdened with procedures, fees, requirements, documents, and forms none of this actually succeeds in regulating adoption. If you have enough money, the market will supply you with a child. 

Stateless Adoptees

This article about an Mexican adoptee who may be deported has some inaccuracies in it,* but I'd like to comment on the citizenship status of international adoptees and pose some questions.

I think that an issue that wasn't explored is also important. Adoptees sent to foreign countries with travel visas that state that the purpose for their trip was adoption may have lost their citizenship of their birth countries. If they're not naturalized in their adoptive countries, and not considered natural-born citizens, they may be stateless, violating one of the rights identified by the U.N. in Principle 3 of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child [which] asserts that "The child shall be entitled from his birth to a name and a nationality." (Wikipedia article: Statelessness)

Male children adopted from South Korea, for example, were routinely stricken from national registries of citizens which meant that they were not obligated to serve the compulsory military service that all Korean men must do. Are those men who are not naturalized citizens stateless now? In the article, Ms. Cohen was allegedly born to parents who neglected her. It's possible that she wasn't registered in Mexico given her young age at the time of her adoption. Is she really a citizen of Mexico? ROK and Mexico has a well-developed civic culture compared to other "source" countries of adoptable children. Children coming from countries where the adoption industry has matured faster than the general civic culture may face greater problems trying to establish their citizenship.

Adopters often advocate for special treatment of their adopted children. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 is one example. It was argued that their parents are U.S. citizens, so their children should also be indistinguishable from other children born outside the U.S. to American citizens, like those who are in the military or serving in the Foreign Service. I don't know why the final bill excluded children who entered the country under the IR-4 and those of us adopted well before the CCA was law.

Ironically, I have heard cases in which deportations were avoided because the birth country refused to acknowledge the citizenship of an adoptee and the U.S. had already declared the adoptee deportable. While this keeps him or her in detention, it does keep the adoptee on U.S. soil. This may be preferable to being sent to a place that has been made unfamiliar and strange because of international adoption. The article says that Cohen doesn't speak Spanish. She risks being sent to a country where she has no family or friends. For some people, deportation is the worst case scenario. Worse than being imprisoned without a lawyer or a trial as ICE detainees are.




*A green card is not a visa. It's a Permanent Resident (Alien Registration) identification card. Marrying a citizen does not convey citizenship for foreign-born nationals within three years; it's only after three years can people who are married to citizens begin to petition for citizenship. Children adopted after 2000 only become U.S. citizens if they enter the country under certain visas, which many are ineligible for, so they still must be naturalized.

Night and Day

The message, in Nepali, listed Mr. Chhantyal’s disappointments and failures. He had lapsed in his Hindu faith and become obsessed with following the political turmoil in Nepal online. He feared that his asylum hearing, scheduled for December, would result in deportation because of traffic violations, foiling his plans to send for the wife and two young children he had left in Nepal five years before. More...

More evidence about the fears that the current immigration system instills in people and the tragic outcomes it produces.

Illegal (sic) Immigrant Students Publicly Take Up a Cause

Another large group of involuntary immigrants are advocating for their rights. People who came to the US with their parents as children, and are now unauthorized to live in the U.S., hope that the DREAM Act will give them the rights that they deserve. The New York Times article can be found here.

If it passes, the DREAM Act would create a way for immigrants to become permanent residents if they arrived in the U.S. before they were 16 years old, have been living here continuously for 5 years, do not have a criminal record, and have graduated from high school or have a GED. They would then have temporary residency during which they would have to complete at least a 2-year college degree or serve in the U.S. military for 2 years. Support the passage of the DREAM Act by joining the United We DREAM coalition.