Why Are Americans—and Especially Adoptive Parents—Not Outraged by the Deportation of International Adoptees?

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“The U.S. is unique in this: No other nation that has taken in adopted children deprives them of citizenship.”

That’s a quote from an AP article, “Thousands of children adopted by Americans are without citizenship. Congress is unwilling to act.”

It’s plausible that adoptees without citizenship could be included in mass deportation actions.

Thousands of international adoptees, brought here to the U.S. for adoption from an assortment of countries,, do not have citizenship, through no fault of theirs. The children were not responsible to obtain citizenship. Adoption agencies, adoptive parents, and the U.S. government had and have responsibility–not the adoptees.

Citizenship is handled through federal legislation (not on a state level). Our federal government has not yet acted to help these children, who are now adults. Adults who often didn’t know they were not citizens. (If they vote, they are committing a felony.) Adults who now live in fear. Adults who worked all their lives and cannot access Medicare or Social Security. Adults who committed a crime, served their sentence, and then were deported. Adults who were brought here to live with “forever families” and were deported, now living in a place with no family, no friends, often no language. They are often severely limited in ways to support themselves. They are living in horrific poverty. loneliness, and isolation. Many were adopted by U.S. military officers, and now the U.S. denies the adoptees citizenship, through no fault of the adoptee.

Bureaucrats and virulent anti-immigration sentiments are destroying the lives of international adoptees. Some of those bureaucrats are ostensibly pro-adoption, pro-life. The hypocrisy is devastating, and thousands of adopted people are at risk.

Please read the AP article. Please share it with others.

Mike Davis, pictured above, has been separated from his family since his deportation to Ethiopia in 2005. His wife and sons are waiting to welcome him home. He has five grandchildren he’s never met. He has significant health problems. As an international adoptee, whose adoptive dad was a U.S. Army officer, how much does he have to be punished?

Adoptive parents, and anyone else, please take action.

Contact your federal Senators and Representatives and ask them to sign on to the Adoptee Citizenship Act. In the U.S. Senate, the bill is S. 4448.

Right now the Senate bill has a total of 7 co-sponsors. That’s right: only 7 U.S. Senators (out of 100) are willing to work for citizenship for all international adoptees. That’s just over 5% of our Senators.

In the U,S, House of Representatives (435 Members), the bill is H.R. 8617. So far, the bill has 23 co-sponsors, or also just about 5% of the House.

You can find your U.S. representative in the House here., and your U.S. Senators here. You can send a brief email saying you are their constituent and you want them to co-sponsor the Adoptee Citizenship Act. It’ll take just a few minutes, and it could make an enormous difference. Thank you.

Other actions are to support the work of organizations such as Adoptees For Justice, Alliance for Adoptee Citizenship, Adoptees United, the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and any others working to provide this basic right. Stay informed, and share the information with others.

Contribute to the Mutual Aid Fund of Adoptees For Justice to provide funds for deported adoptees, who are often struggling mightily.

If you have any connection to adoption, if you believe in adoption, if you care about adoptees, please take action.

Deported Adoptee Adam Crapser Has Strong Words for South Korean Government, Holt Adoption Agency

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Though many international adoptees have been deported, Adam Crapser may be the best known, due to press coverage and to his lawsuit against South Korea and Holt.

According to an Associated Press article, yesterday Adam “delivered a scathing denunciation of the Korean government and his adoption agency in a Seoul appeals court,” Now 49 years old, Adam was adopted in 1979, and deported back to South Korea in 2016. In 2019, he filed a lawsuit in Korean courts. He “accuses Holt and the Korean government of ‘malfeasance’ that contributed to his traumatic adoption experience in the U.S. He says he was abused and abandoned by two different pairs of adoptive parents who never filed his citizenship papers.”

Lawsuits can take many years to work their way through the system. The South Korean court ruled on Adam’s case in 2023; there are still additional matters pending. Per the AP article: “Crapser’s lawyer, Mina Kim, said her client was seeking 200 million won ($144,700) in damages and urged the court to see how the Korean government and Holt were supposedly liable for ‘their role in this illegal adoption, which was similar to human trafficking.’

The Seoul High Court will decide on the case on Jan. 8.

Crapser’s lawsuit accuses Holt of manipulating his paperwork to disguise him as an orphan despite the existence of a known birth mother, exposing him to abusive adopters by botching background checks and not following up.”

I’ve written for over 10 years about the unethical and tragic reality that the United States deports international adoptees who came here as children with the oversight of the both the U.S. and sending country. If for whatever reasons the children’s parents did not get their adopted children citizenship, the children, when they become adults, are subject to deportation if they commit a crime. The crimes can range from selling marijuana in the case of Joao Herbert, who was deported back to Brazil and murdered there in 2004, when he was 26 years old. He had been adopted when he was 8. Adam Crapser’s crimes were more serious. His childhood was more fraught as well, including multiple placements and the conviction of his adoptive parents for sexual abuse.

Since at least 2016, there has been legislation in the U.S. Congress to grant citizenship to all adoptees. It has still not passed, despite the efforts of organizations such as Adoptees For Justice and others.

Via Adoptees for Justice: “There are 18,603 Korean American adoptees alone who do not have American citizenship, according to the Korean Health Ministry.”

Further, “There are cases of individuals without citizenship who were adopted from 28 countries including Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Ireland, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Spain, South Korea, St. Kitts, Taiwan, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.”

I also know of at least one deported adoptee in Morocco.

Being deported is a traumatic, lonely event. Often the adoptees don’t speak the language, don’t have any family or friends in their country of origin, and have tremendous struggles to make even a poverty-level living.

You can help by supporting the Congressional legislation, by sharing information about deported adoptees, and by donating to a Mutual Aid Fund set up by Adoptees for Justice.

Also, please support the work of the Adoptees United and their Citizenship Clinic.
They provide free and low cost services for intercountry adopted people who have US citizenship issues or questions. “The clinic’s services include legal screenings, consultation and advice about legal options, and legal representation to secure a Certificate of Citizenship.”

All of us in the international adoption community, and especially we adoptive parents, should step up to help all intercountry adoptees get citizenship, and to bring home those who have been deported,



Korean Birth Mother Sues Holt Agency and Government of Korea for Wrongful Adoption of Her Daughter

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Han Tae-soon is 70 years old. She says that in 1976, her four-year-old daughter was wrongfully sent to the United States for adoption.She is now suing the Holt Adoption agency as well as the government of South Korea.

Per the Associated Press article, this is the “first known case of a Korean birth parent suing for damages against the government and an adoption agency over the wrongful adoption of their child.”

From the article: “Han accuses Holt Children’s Services, South Korea’s biggest adoption agency, of facilitating (her daughter Laurie) Bender’s adoption without checking her background. Her lawyers said the Jechon Children’s Home made no effort to find the parents after Bender was placed at the facility by police in May 1975, a day after Han reported her as missing. 

In her adoption papers, Bender, named Shin Gyeong-ha at birth, is described as an abandoned orphan with no known parents. Under a new Korean name made by the orphanage, Baik Kyong Hwa, she was sent to the United States in February 1976. 

“For 44 years, I wandered and searched for my child, but the joy of meeting her was only momentary and now I am in so much pain because we can’t communicate in the same language,” Han said, fighting back tears. 

“It turns out they didn’t make an effort to find her clearly existing parents and instead disguised her as an orphan for adoption abroad. I want the government and Holt to explain to us how this happened.” 

The AP article notes that “In 2019, Adam Crapser became the first Korean adoptee to sue the South Korean government and an adoption agency for damages, accusing them of mishandling his adoption to the United States, where he faced legal troubles after surviving an abusive childhood before being deported in 2016.

After four years of hearings, the Seoul Central District Court last year ordered Crapser’s adoption agency, Holt, to pay him 100 million won ($74,000) in damages for failing to inform his adopters they needed to take separate steps to obtain his citizenship after his adoption was approved by a state court. 

However, the court dismissed Crapser’s accusations against the Korean government over alleged monitoring and due diligence failures. The case is now with the Seoul High Court after both Crapser and Holt appealed.”

Lawsuits like these in Korea and elsewhere can take a long time to work their way through the system. I hope that Adam Crapser, Han Tae-soon, and her daughter find justice.

A New Adoptee-Therapist, Specializing in Adoption, Eating Disorders, and More

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I’ve known Aselefech Evans since 1994, when she arrived for adoption in the United States from Ethiopia. She and her twin sister are my beloved daughters. Through the years, I have seen Aselefech grow and work hard, always staying true to herself, her family (around the globe), her heritage, her empathy, and her compassion.

She is now available as a therapist, and I have no doubts she will bring insights, understanding, and resources to those with whom she works.

She “leans on somatics (body-based therapy), meditation, and ancestral exploration while drawing from Cognitive Behavioral therapy and Mindfulness…tools which have transformed her own healing and sense of belonging.”

She is in the process of setting up her private practice, which is exciting. Meanwhile, she is currently available to see clients through Alluvial Counseling, taking major insurances.

Aselefech works with youth 16+ and adults. She has a particular interest and expertise supporting people impacted by family separation, adoption, immigration, eating disorders, racial trauma, grief, workplace burnout, anxiety, and depression, and those impacted by oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, classism, queerphobia, and fatphobia. 

Aselefech received her Bachelor’s in Sociology with a focus in Black Studies from Bowie State, a Historically Black College in Bowie, MD. In 2022, she completed her MSW with an emphasis in Integrative Health and Mental Health from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

She can be booked through Psychology Today and Alluvial Counseling.

I am, of course, very proud of Aselefech. Beyond my personal perspective, having an empathetic, Black, immigrant, adoptee, woman, insightful, knowledgable therapist in the community is wonderful beyond words.

Upcoming “Seasoned Parents” Class From Adoption Mosaic: Join Us!

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Adoption has its own rhythm through our lifetimes, depending where we are in the constellation. There’s certainly no magic ending to issues when a child turns 18; legal adulthood can look very different from the emotional and psychological realities.

In fact, as adopted people and adoptive parents get older, many new issues can emerge. Our understanding of what adoption means can change over time, as well as our lens on parenting. Our adopted children may become parents themselves, and that can raise significant new thoughts. The role of race in the case of transracial adoptions can become more pointed as our children are out in the world, and as they reflect on their childhood experiences.

I, for one, am constantly learning and growing and striving to do better, even as my children are in their 30’s and I have 3 grandchildren.

I also have the honor to co-facilitate Adoption Mosaic’s Seasoned Parents class, a 6-week program start October 16, for adoptive parents whose children are over 18. My co-facilitators are Adoption Mosaic’s founder Astrid Castro, an adoptee from Colombia, and Katie Christians, a U.S. adoptee with extensive experience in Adoption Mosaic youth groups, panels, and programs.

Maureen McCauley (L) and
Katie Christians (R)

From the website:

“Need help trying to figure out how adoption plays a part in your family now that your kids are adults?

In this course, participants will:

  • Reflect on why we chose adoption, and what we have learned over decades of raising children; 
  • Dig into the challenges of talking about race, the adoption industry, gratitude, anger, adoption fog, search, and reunion; and
  • Practice talking about these adoption issues with our adult children and with others, in ways that are clear, respectful, and helpful.”

Visiting Hana Williams’ grave, and reflecting on her isolation

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Ethiopian adoptee Hana Williams (named Hana Alemu by her Ethiopian family) is buried in Union Cemetery in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Her adoptive parents were sentenced in 2015 to decades in jail for Hana’s death and for the abuse of another Ethiopian adoptee.

Both had joined the Williams’ family in 2008, and Hana died in May 2011.

I attended almost every day of the trial back in 2015, and have blogged many times about Hana’s death.

Yesterday, on my way back from Anacortes to Seattle, I stopped to visit Hana’s gravesite, as I have done frequently over the years.

Hana’s adoptive family home in Sedro-Woolley, about 70 miles north of Seattle, was in a remote area not easily accessible by anyone other than those who live in the gated community.

She lived in so much isolation during her three short years in the United States: separated from Ethiopia, from the Ethiopian community in Washington, from the Ethiopian adoptee community here. The Williamses’ home was on acres of land, so the WIlliamses’ severn biological children plus the two Ethiopian adoptees had room to roam, though only with siblings.

Hana lived in a place surrounded by beautiful trees and blue skies, but soon after she was adopted, she was locked in a barn, locked in a shower room, locked ultimately in a closet, for hours and hours. She died from malnutrition and hypothermia in family’s back yard, having been sent outside as yet another punishment.

Now, in death, Hana has peace, or so some of us pray.

Her burial spot is isolated as well, which I find poignant at each visit. It took a long time for the family to get a marker for the grave, The site itself is distant even from any other graves.

Hana’s horrific death is probably the top reason that adoptions from Ethiopia ended in 2018.

I pray that we all hold Hana in our hearts. No child, no adoptee, should ever suffer what she went through.

“I willingly, joyfully adopted my sons from Paraguay. I would never do it again”—An adoptive mother speaks out

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Marjie Alonso adopted two boys in 1995. She deeply loves them both. In 2011, they all returned to Paraguay; her sons reunited with their mothers there. The reunions were poignant, and eye-opening.

Here is an excerpt from Marjie’s article, “I willingly, joyfully adopted my sons from Paraguay. I would never do it again.’

“What I thought—what most adoptive parents thought—was that we were helping children who would otherwise languish in orphanages. The truth, made horribly plain in the stories recently released (about Korean and Chinese adoptions) is something very different. In international adoptions, children are often coerced away from mothers. or literally stolen. My children weren’t stolen, but there have been confirmed cases in Paraguay and elsewhere…

And either way, the inequities of wealth and privilege mean the ‘choice’ to relinquish a child may not be a true choice at all.”

I agree with Marjie. These are hard truths for adoptive parents to acknowledge. We love our children deeply, and our decision to adopt may have caused them and their original family trauma and pain, due to the vagaries of power, money, privilege, and inequities.

Marjie writes “How much money would have allowed my children’s birth mothers to keep their children? It cost me more than $30,000 to adopt my sons. The agencies got the bulk of it…I was in Paraguay for nearly three months…My hotel bill would have housed and fed both families in relative luxury for at least a year.’

“But the adoption industry isn’t propelled by altruism. It is a multi-billion-dollar business. The product they sell is children. There is no money in the family-saving business. There are untold riches in the family-making business.

Had I been asked, I would not have given that same $30,000 to save my sons’ biological families and come home empty-handed, a difficult truth to reckon with.”

I give Marjie great credit in voicing and sharing these hard truths. I hope it opens more of a conversation about the complexities of adoption, the role we all play in it, the notion of whose best interest is being met, and how we can do so much better.

“Why is race still a factor in adoption?” Ask adoptees about that. A Call to Conversation and Action.

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While there are many reasons, race is a factor in transracial adoption because transracial adoptees have told us this, for decades.

I’ve been reluctant to publicize this New York Post article “Why is race still a factor in adoption?”. It is woefully uninformed, relies on attacks and haughty insinuations, and shows no real depth in terms of the nuances and complexity of race in adoption.

The writer, Naomi Schaefer Riley, does share the voice of an adoptee in the article. Riley vilifies Angela Tucker, a Black woman and adopted person, pouncing on Angela’s admittedly challenging Substack post, “What It Felt Like to Stop a White Couple From Adopting a Black Baby.”

I say “admittedly challenging” because Angela knew her writing would be controversial. It is nuanced and thoughtful as well, rooted not only in Angela’s personal experience as a transracial adoptee but also in her years of professional work in adoption. She is currently the executive director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society, an adoptee-centric organization guided by many members of the adoption community, including those deeply familiar with the complexity of transracial adoption and racial identity.

Angela, like many adopted adults who speak out about the role of race for transracial adoptees, is used to pushback from white adoptive parents, and indeed from white people generally. She does not oppose transracial adoption. She loves her white adoptive parents. She and I, a white adoptive parent of 4 transracially adopted Black now-adults, have known each other for years.

In part, I am suggesting here a Call to Conversation and Action because of my respect for the experiences of adoptees like my own beloved children, and of Angela, and of so many other transracially adopted adults.

This is a both/and situation, one that the New York Post article does not grasp: Adoptees can both love their adoptive family, and want to see adoption transformed (or abolished—and many folks do not understand what abolition means in the adoption community). You can be grateful for adoption (gratitude is an extremely controversial subject in adoption), and have traumatic, painful experiences due to racism. You can deeply love your adopted children, and also be aware that they were not prepared for racism and racist attacks.

You can protect your Black or Brown children in the loving bubble of your white family, and realize that the world is full of systemic and institutional racism, which might manifest as personal attacks both subtle and overt on your children.

You can want all children to have safe families, and also oppose adoption, arguing for other measures that don’t separate children from their mothers, siblings, cousins, grandparents, country, heritage, culture, language. You can acknowledge that adoption may have benefits (especially economic), and also recognize the struggles that some transracial adoptees have in terms of mental health, racial identity, sense of self, and more.

I am still processing my thoughts about the article. I welcome other voices to the conversation. The details of any Call to Action are yet to be determined, but I for one cannot let Riley’s question go unanswered.

A final note:

Research spans decades on the impact of race in adoption. Here are a few examples.

The Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York has no fewer than 14 articles in its “Family Resources and Supports” section, with titles such as “Understanding the Impact of Racism on Children’s Mental Health” and “Racism and Microaggressions in Transracial Adoption.” There is a range of perspectives provided; all note that race is a compelling, forceful part of adoption.

This is from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute in 2000, following the 1999 Gathering of Korean adoptees: https://iamadoptee.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Gathering-Donaldson-survey.pdf A quote: “The majority of respondents reported that they had experienced some form of discrimination while they were growing up. Race (70%) was cited more often as the basis for discrimination than was adoption (28%).”

Another example is from the Washington Post in 2021: ‘I Know My Parents Love Me, But They Don’t Love My People: Adoptees of Color with White parents struggle to talk with their families about race.

From Pepperdine University, 2017: “Empowering Adopted Children in the Face of Racism and Discrimination.”

From the Journal of Family Psychology, 2022; The Intersection of race and adoption: Experiences of transracial and international adoptees with micro aggressions.

More Insights On China’s Decision to End Adoption: Red Thread Broken’s Grace Newton, and The New Yorker

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Take a look at Reflections on the End of 32 Years of Chinese International Adoption From a 30 Year Old Chinese Adoptee, by Grace Newton, the writer of the highly regarded Red Thread Broken blog. Grace is a Ph.D. student and a co-author of the groundbreaking Adoptee Consciousness Model.

In her blog post, Grace reflects on China’s history around international adoption as well as her own. She cites other Chinese adoptees, including  Grace Gerloff‘s interview with Minnesota Public Radio. Overall, Newton reflects on the far-ranging ramifications of China’s decision, in terms of adoptees locating their birth families, adoptees who had hoped to adopt from China, the random nature of adoption, and more.

Here’s one excerpt:

“A question that I have grappled with throughout my participation at adoptee conferences and spaces is more than just recognizing and responding to the inherent traumas in adoption, how do we instill pride in a community that wants to become extinct? What does joy and what does liberation look like for such a community? Of course, this doesn’t describe every adoptee’s perspective, but as stated by Hannah Johns, a Chinese adoptee and social worker in New York, “the blunt reality is that there will be fewer families in existence like mine. And none will likely be created the way mine was ever again.” The news of China ending their international adoption program creates a sense of finality to the idea that we, Chinese adoptees, will go extinct. As families that are created through international adoption become rarer, they should absolutely be accepted and de-stigmatized as a less legitimate type of family; however I don’t believe that adoption should be normalized in the ways it has been again.”

Newton is also quoted in a New Yorker article, The End of Adoptions From China.

The article is written by Barbara Demick, a Los Angeles Times China bureau chief and author of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins.

Demick writes in The New Yorker about the complex history of adoption in China, noting “the legacy of the one-child policy will be long-lasting. Demographers believe that it will be difficult for China to boost its birth rate, in part because there are now too few women of childbearing age, the result of more than thirty-five years of abandonments and abortions. But the Chinese government is trying. Some localities have recently announced subsidies of up to four thousand dollars for families having a second or third child. Women have been given incentives like water bottles and rice cookers to attend pro-family lectures. The same government officers who once terrorized families are now tasked with promoting more births.”

As others in the adoption community have said, the range of responses to China’s decision needs to be discerned and honored. Adoptees are not a monolith, and nor are birth parents or adoptive parents. One certainty is, though, that international adoption is changing dramatically around the globe. Both so-called “sending” and “receiving” countries are no doubt watching the developments and responses closely, especially as allegations of role of money, commodification, and fraud continue to emerge.

“Rampant Adoption Fraud:” Korean Adoption Controversies Revealed in New Frontline Documentary and AP Report

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The Associated Press (AP) and PBS’s Frontline investigative program have together released an in-depth report and documentary showing “rampant adoption fraud” in Korean adoptions, beginning in the 1960’s. To their credit, the AP and documentary reporters and interviewed some 80 adult Korean adoptees, and went through the paperwork of hundreds more.

Here is the link to the Frontline documentary, “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning,” which airs tonight.

Here are links to and quotes from the AP reports:

Western nations were desperate for Korean babies. Now many adoptees believe they were stolen

“Now adults, many (Korean adoptees) have since discovered that their adoption paperwork was untrue, and their quest for accountability now has spread far beyond South Korea’s borders to the Western countries that claimed them. 

Those governments turned a blind eye to rampant fraud and sometimes pressured the South Korean government to keep the kids coming, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. Documents show that at the peak of adoptions from South Korea, Western diplomats processed papers like an assembly line, despite evidence that adoption agencies were aggressively competing for babies to send abroad, pressuring mothers and paying hospitals. Governments focused on satisfying intense demand from Western families desperate for children.”

“Widespread adoption fraud separated generations of Korean children from their families.”

“South Korea’s government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence they were being procured through questionable or downright unscrupulous means, an investigation led by The Associated Press found. Those children grew up and searched for their roots — and some realized they are not who they were told.

Their stories have sparked a reckoning that is rocking the international adoption industry, which was built in South Korea and spread around the world. European countries have launched investigations and halted international adoption. The South Korean government has accepted a fact-finding commission under pressure from adoptees, and hundreds have submitted their cases for review.”

“The agencies and governments each played a part in keeping the baby pipeline pumping. Adoption agencies created a competitive market for children and paid hospitals to supply them, documents show. The South Korean government not only knew of fraudulent practices but designed laws to speed up the exportation of children it deemed undesirable. Western governments turned a blind eye, sometimes even pressuring South Korea for children, while promoting the narrative that they were saving orphans with no other options.

The AP, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), spoke with more than 80 adoptees in the U.S., Australia and Europe and examined thousands of pages of documents to reveal evidence of kidnapped or missing children ending up abroad, fabricated names, babies switched with one another and parents told their newborns were gravely sick or dead, only to discover decades later they’d been sent to new parents overseas.”

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South Korean truth commission says it found more evidence of forced adoptions in the 1980s

“The report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on September 9 came years after The Associated Press revealed adoptions from the biggest facility for so-called vagrants, Brothers Home, which shipped children abroad as part of a huge, profit-seeking enterprise that exploited thousands of people trapped within the compound in the port city of Busan. Thousands of children and adults — many of them grabbed off the streets — were enslaved in such facilities and often raped, beaten or killed in the 1970s and 1980s. 

The commission was launched in December 2020 to review human rights violations linked to the country’s past military governments. It had previously found the country’s past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers. Its latest report is focused on four similar facilities in the cities of Seoul and Daegu and the provinces of South Chungcheong and Gyeonggi. Like Brothers, these facilities were operated to accommodate government roundups aimed at beautifying the streets.”

I don’t think it is hyperbole to say these reports could have devastating impacts on the practice of international adoption around the globe. In the adoption community, many folks will tell you that adult adoptees have been saying these things for years. Their voices, per these reports, seem to have reached quite a critical mass.