Who holds the power in international adoption: adoptive parents or adoptees? Let’s talk fairness and justice. A case study:

The adoptive parent serves 90 days of jail for horrific abuse of children. The adopted son serves 25 months in jail for burglary (no one was hurt), and then could be deported.

In 1991, adoptive father Thomas Crapser served 90 days after being convicted for 12 counts of cruelty and abuse of children. One of those children, Adam Crapser, got into trouble as a teen and adult, and spent 25 months in prison for burglary.

Adam now faces deportation, because he is not a US citizen. Adam is 40 years old, with a wife and children. He has served time for his crimes, and has worked hard to be a good, productive member of the community.

Thomas Crapser received no punishment at all for failing to get citizenship for his internationally adopted son Adam, who was among the children beaten, burned, clubbed, kicked, gagged, and worse. Thomas also received no punishment for refusing for years to give Adam the documents needed to obtain citizenship.

No one is condoning Adam’s crimes. But let’s be fair. Let’s consider justice: 90 days for horrific cruelty to children. 25 months for burglary and then, deportation.

What a message about international adoption, and what it means to be a “forever family” in the United States. Every adoptive parent should be speaking out about this.

Here’s an article about the 1991 arrest of adoptive parents Thomas and Dolly-Jean Crapser:

1991 Arrest of Adam Crapser’s parents

According to a recent Columbian newspaper article: The state launched an investigation in June 1991. The Crapsers were arrested in September 1991 and initially charged with 34 counts of rape, sexual abuse and criminal mistreatment across six years. The case went to trial in Marion County Circuit Court in June 1992. Testimony reported in The Salem Statesman Journal was that eight children had been kicked, punched, gagged, bitten, burned, slammed into walls and beaten with garden tools and belts.

Convicted on 12 counts, Thomas Crapser was sentenced to 90 days in jail, a fine and probation; Dolly-Jean Crapser’s 90-day sentence was suspended, and she was ordered to perform community service. An investigation report had recommended years in prison for both. The state unsuccessfully appealed the sentences.

When Adam Crapser was about 4 years old, he was adopted to the US for a better life with a loving forever family. Well, no. He was adopted–twice–by cruel, abusive parents. He was separated from his sister, shuttled around foster care, and grew up knowing far more abuse than love or even safety. There is no doubt that our US child protection system failed Adam.

Among the parents’ cruelties was the fact that the Crapsers withheld Adam’s basic immigration/adoption documents from him. That’s not a crime as such, to refuse to give a child his legal documents. Nor is it a crime to fail to get citizenship for an internationally adopted child. That failure though can result in devastating consequences.

Growing up in troubled, abusive “families,” Adam made mistakes, for which he admits remorse and has served time.

Again according to the Columbian article, Adam Crapser said middle school bullying was so bad that he wound up lashing back and serving time in juvenile jail. By his late teens, he was living in a car and fending for himself.

Over the next couple of decades, he tried to live a good life, he said, but he racked up several more criminal convictions — starting with burglary for breaking back into the Crapser home to retrieve childhood keepsakes like his Korean Bible. For that, he spent 25 months in prison. Back outside and fearing for his safety, Crapser said, he got hold of a gun — strictly forbidden for a convicted felon — and wound up in prison again.

He decided he had to turn himself around. He studied cosmetology and auto mechanics. He earned his G.E.D. and worked as a collision-repair estimator. “I’ve worked so many jobs for 90 days at a time,” he said, because every employer faced a deadline to require proof of legal status. Crapser’s permanent legal status — his Green Card — had long since expired. He couldn’t get a new one without documents that he said the Crapsers withheld.

Once he did finally get the documents in 2012 and applied to renew his green card, Adam’s criminal convictions brought the possibility of deportation. Here in the US, convicted felons who are not US citizens can be deported. That possibility of deportation extends to international adoptees who were brought to the US, without having any choice or say in the matter, by legal US citizens, with the awareness and permission of their country of origin and of the United States government.

Internationally adopted children did not automatically receive US citizenship prior to 2000. Read more here.

Adam Crapser’s initial deportation hearing was held on April 2, and resulted in a continuation until June 18. You can learn more here in the UK’s Guardian, here on MSNBC, and here on CBS News. Google “Adam Crapser” and you will see many major and local news outlets featuring articles and interviews.

The international adoptee community has been tireless in its advocacy for Adam and for changes in citizenship laws, urging retroactive citizenship for all international adoptees. Legislation is being proposed in the US Congress to correct the absurdity that children internationally adopted by US citizens do not receive US citizenship as part of their legal relationship with their family.

Fairness and justice.