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.

Gratefulness

Adoptees and immigrants are always supposed to be grateful. We’re never supposed to criticize the United States nor the people who adopted us. After all, we’re lucky enough to have been given a chance to live the American Dream. We were saved from horrible Third World Countries where we would have been working in factories making cheap goods for Wal-Mart. Or worse. We hear, “Women are treated horribly in the countries where we were born. “America” is better, the best country, ever! Shut up and don’t make waves. In your country you don’t have the freedom to say anything against the government so how dare you complain?!”

But the adoption industry created the market for children and babies. The United States funded wars that orphaned us and impoverished our countries and our families. We're supposed to be grateful that the United States (one of the many American countries) colonized our countries, by sending missionaries, military, and merchants. Some families driven to desperation migrated from their ancestral homes, their families, their professions, and their lives. Others gave up their children.

For this we're supposed to be grateful.

"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith

From Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus

Thanks to Nate James Bae Kupel at Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus.


Joon Hyun Kim’s case once again illustrates the fateful convergence of decisions made and not made by adoptive parents and adoptees, who are eventually left to confront the issues of ethnicity and nationality by themselves and without much guidance.


Dorothy Romriell was finally being sworn in on Monday, ending an ambiguous chapter in her life that began five years ago when she applied for a U.S. passport, only to learn that she never became a citizen back in 1956 when she was adopted by the family of a U.S. Air Force member stationed in South Korea.


There is a fairly large constituency of Asian adoptees in Massachusetts who are not citizens. 


Dan Heiskala...was adopted at the age of 5, yet was never naturalized as a citizen by his a-parents (Adoptive Parents). His legal battle over his illegal status began in 1992 when he was convicted of stealing a truck which he alleges was false. Per counseled instruction, he did not testify on his behalf and was found guilty by trial resulting in a 7-10 year sentence.

Texas adoptee deported

Here's an article about a Mexican adoptee who was deported. The adoptee's sister says:

"He is not an undocumented immigrant," McMillan said. "He did not falsify any documents. He didn’t sneak over here. He is an American."

Too often we immigrants are divided into categories judged as "good" or "bad" like McMillan implies.

Good ones have a paper that says we paid money to enter the country. Receipts for the fees we paid for visas and doctor's exams. Bank statements that say we have enough money. A diploma that says we're trained professionals and educated. A visa or green card that shows an expiration date, which keeps the government informed of our movements. They're here looking for Freedom, Opportunity, and the American Dream.

Bad immigrants pay money to snakeheads, coyotes, or government officials and leave no paper trails. They often have had their education interrupted by the need to work, violence, or come from a culture that still values practical knowledge and physical labor over formal education.They live semi-clandestine lives that doesn't attract the attention of ICE. They're here to take American jobs, commit crimes, and change the American Way of Life. They broke the law by not going through the correct channels.

This division of immigrants into good and bad seems to be more rational than people who are just anti-immigrant because they're not xenophobic bigots, they're just people who expect everyone to follow the rules. But, laws are not always just. Some laws are justifiably broken when they are inhumane and unfair. Slavery was legal, and some people broke the law by stealing human chattel and brought them to freedom. Segregation was legal and some people broke the law by sitting in the front of the bus and at lunch counters for Whites Only. If you put immigrants into good and bad categories, how do you classify the Underground Railroad conductors and intrepid Civil Rights pioneers? 

What about immigrants with all the receipts and papers who get in trouble with the law? What about those without documentation who work hard, raise their children and send them to college, and are valuable members of their communities? What about those of us whose legal documents were completed by criminals on our behalf? Where should we be categorized?