Tag Archives: Adoptee Citizenship Act

Adoptive Parents Must Step Up in the Time of ICE and Deportation Fear

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It would be great if none of us had to worry about deportation or ICE roundups, and about what to do if we get caught up in a raid. We parents who adopted internationally may feel everything is fine because our children–whether they are 4 years old or 39–have their Certificate of Citizenship or a valid passport. The Social Security Administration recognizes their US citizenship. That’s great.

And yet it may not be enough to prevent a sense of anxiety and even fear, especially for Brown and Black transracial adoptees from countries that are being targeted, Additionally, many international adoptees may not be US citizens. Some know this, and some are unaware, assuming that they are citizens. Adoptees without citizenship have been and continue to be deported.

What can and should adoptive parents do to help, given that we committed ourselves to international adoption?

  • Learn about the issue.
  • Be open and curious abut how adoptees are feeling.
  • Use our position as adoptive parents to help advance legislation to provide citizenship to all international adoptees and to prevent deportation.
  • Support and donate to adoptee-led organizations who are helping international adoptees with citizenship issues.

One concrete and important step is here: Dear Parents of Intercountry Adoptees: Do These Two Things Today. Consider this valuable and free advice from a lawyer who is also an adoptee.

Then move on to these items:

Learn

A brief overview:

International adoptees enter the United States as immigrants.

Adoptive parents have the responsibility to get citizenship for their children who are minors when they arrive here. Citizenship became automatic for international adoptees under 18 years old (though there is still paperwork involved) as a result of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000.

From the Adoptee Rights Law Center: “…despite the adoption, thousands of intercountry adoptees continue to have significant issues with US citizenship today. Those issues include:

  1. Securing U.S. Citizenship. Tens of thousands of intercountry adoptees today do not have US citizenship, despite being adopted as children by US citizen parents.
  2. Proving U.S. Citizenship. Even if intercountry adoptees acquired U.S. citizenship under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, many may not have proof of that citizenship, either through a US passport or a Certificate of Citizenship.

Both issues are fraught with difficulty and may come with life-altering repercussions. Making it worse, U.S. law currently excludes older intercountry adoptees—those born prior to March 1983—from acquiring citizenship through adoption. Instead, they must often go through a long and expensive immigration process to naturalize as U.S. citizens. As adults today, they are considered immigrants, and are subject to deportation if they commit a crime or are not found to be in the country properly. This is fundamentally wrong.”

Adoption immigration law can be complicated, depending on when a child was adopted, what visa they entered with, and whether they commit a crime. Because of this, many international adoptees–even those with citizenship–feel concerned, perhaps about themselves, and perhaps about their fellow adoptees,

Be open and curious about how adoptees are feeling.

We adoptive parents who were born here in the US have rarely had to worry about proving citizenship, or even thinking about it.

Our adopted children look at the world through a different lens: as immigrants, perhaps as people of color. Their country of origin may also affect the way they see the world and the world sees them. Haiti, Nicaragua, Russia, Ukraine, Guatemala, and Mexico come to mind. Even if your child is not from one of those countries, or has no concerns about citizenship, as adoptive parents we can and should show empathy and concern for other adoptees.

Here are some adoptee perspectives:

Citizenship and Immigration Issues for Intercountry Adopted People: FAQ. Prepared by the Adoptee Rights Law Center, this list illustrates the concerns and quandaries of international adoptees in terms of documents and other resources.

Adoption, Belonging, and the Question of Citizenship: A U.S. adoptee reflects on the implications of birthright citizenship, closed records, possible inaccuracies or fraud, and how both domestic and international adoptees can be affected.

A Reddit conversation posted by an adoptee from China: Is anyone else paranoid about getting deported?

Thousands of Children Adopted by Americans Are Without Citizenship. Congress is Unwilling to Act. An AP article featuring adoptees from Iran, South Korea, Ethiopia, and elsewhere.

Use our position as adoptive parents to help advance legislation to provide citizenship to all international adoptees and to prevent deportation.

Legislation that would provide citizenship to all international adoptees has stalled in Congress for about 10 years. One challenge is that any immigrant without citizenship who commits a crime can be subject to deportation. Adoptees are included in this, regardless of the fact that they were brought here legally by US parents and with the oversight and permission of the sending country. (Some adoptive parents brought children to the US illegally, for medical or other reasons. They have a particular responsibility to acquire citizenship for their children, and it may not be easy.)

Aside from that, international adoptees without citizenship (for whatever reason) are technically here in the US illegally, and could be swept up in ICE raids. This possibility has fueled a great deal of fear among adoptees.

Adoptees for Justice has been actively working on this issue for years. Read more about their efforts on the Adoptee Citizenship Act (ACA) here. Donate to Adoptees for Justice if you can; share their information and ask your federal representatives to support citizenship for all adoptees.

If the ACA were passed, international adoptees who have been deported could return home. Adoptees have been deported to many countries: Germany, Ethiopia, Morocco, Mexico, Canada, India, Brazil, and more. There is a Wikipedia page about Korean adoptees who were deported back to South Korea.

From NPR: “NPR previously reported of an adoptee and father of five who was convicted of marijuana possession in Texas. Because his adoption was filed improperly, he was sent to his birth country of Mexico after having served a few years in prison.”

Support adoptees; Donate to adoptee-led organizations who are helping international adoptees with citizenship issues.

Here are resources to support, and to share with international adoptees and others in the adoption community.

I’ve previously mentioned and urge your support of Adoptees for Justice and the Adoptee Rights Law Center.

The Adoptee Rights Law Center offers free and low cost clinics for international adoptees who have questions about citizenship.

Adoption Mosaic is hosting an Adoptee Wellness Chat on July 16 This is an online, adoptee only event: “We will hold a virtual space to gather, reflect, and process together in light of recent political shifts. We intend to create a supportive environment where we can connect, recharge, and discuss how current policies affect us as individuals, as adoptees, and as a community.”

I understand that about 100 adoptees have registered so far, which gives a sense for what’s percolating among international adoptees right now.

Here’s a great list of Legal Resources for Intercountry Adoptees from Adoptees United. Adoptees United is related to the Adoptee Rights Law Center. Adoptees United is led by adoptees in the United States. “We are committed to a diverse board and organization that represents the interests of all adoptees, whether domestic, intercountry, transracial, or former foster youth.”

Support the work of the National Alliance for Adoptee Equality. Sign their petition for passage of the Adoptee Citizenship Act.


Hold space. Make space. Talk with whomever in your life might be at jeopardy, or might just be worried and stressed. Your adopted son or daughter might not want to talk about it. Keep learning nonetheless. Make sure you have all documents and copies (scroll down that page for the list of documents), all secured in a safe place.

Advocate for citizenship for all adoptees. Donate to help deported adoptees, like Mike Davis who was deported to Ethiopia decades ago and hopes to someday meet his grandchildren in person. Mike and other deported adoptees often struggle with life in deportation: they are isolated, often ostracized, don’t speak the language, and have difficulty securing work, housing, and medical care.

We adoptive parents have power to bring about change. Now is the time to be strong allies for international adoptees, to step up and do the work.

Dear U.S. Congress: Bring Our Deported International Adoptees Home

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Many places around the globe are celebrating Christmas today. Many deported international adoptees are “celebrating” alone without family or friends, far from home and the life they were promised when they were brought “home” to the U.S.

International adoptees have been deported because their adoptive parents (or adoption agencies or U.S. government agencies) failed to get them citizenship when they were children.

Thousands of international adoptees are estimated to be without citizenship, and some don’t even know that they are not citizens. Some find out when they commit a crime (and it can relatively minor) and are deported. Some proudly vote in local and federal elections, not knowing they are committing a felony. Some work hard all their lives and then find out they don’t qualify for Social Security or Medicare.

I do not understand why our U.S. Congress has not yet granted citizenship to all international adoptees. It is the humane, responsible, ethically right action to take, especially by those who are proponents of adoption.

Information is available at Adoptees for Justice and Adoptee Rights Law Center. I’ve written about this issue often, including recently here.

Please take action if you can, asking your U.S. elected federal officials to open their hearts and grant citizenship to all adoptees. Please send hope and resilience to the many adoptees who have been deported. May their loneliness end; may they be welcomed back (well before next Christmas) with family and friends in the U.S., the place that was supposed to be their forever home.

A Podcast With Ethiopian Adoptee Mike Davis, Speaking Out for Citizenship for All International Adoptees

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Mike Davis, a 61-year-old Ethiopian adoptee deported to Ethiopia in 2005, did a wonderful job in talking about his hopes for citizenship for himself and all international adoptees, on a podcast with Unraveling Adoption.

I was honored when Mike asked me to join him on the podcast, hosted by Beth Syverson. (Be sure to check out Beth’s other podcasts and resources on Unraveling Adoption.) I appreciated Beth’s compassion and openness. Mike was focused and strong, for which I give him great credit given the harshness of his situation.

You can help Mike with his legal and medical issues via this GoFundMe. All the money goes to Mike, for legal expenses as well as doctor bills and medicines. It is not easy to be alone in a country far from family and friends, and to have significant health issues. Mike has been working with Adoptees for Justice and their lawyers (thank you!) to, we deeply hope, return home to his wife, children, grandchildren, and friends. Many thanks to all who are able to donate, and for sharing the GoFundMe.

If you want more information on ways to help all international adoptees gain citizenship, check out this blog post.

International adoptees prior to 2000 were not granted automatic citizenship, contrary to what many in and out of the adoption community might think. Some have been deported. Many fear being deported. Please join Mike and others in advocating for citizenship for all international adoptees. Please help Mike and all deported adoptees come back home.

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 Ethiopian Adoptee and the Need for Congressional Action: WABE

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An important new story from WABE, an Atlants-based NPR/PBS station: Georgia Adoptee deported due to legal loophole that Congress is now trying to fix.”

The story focuses on Mike Davis, born in 1962 and adopted from Ethiopia by a U.S. Army sergeant in 1972. Mike spent his life in America believing he was a U.S. citizen. In 1993, he was committed a crime, went to a boot camp, and was on probation for three years. Then the United States in 2005 deported him to a country he no longer knew at all, leaving his wife, his children, his home, his businesses, and now his grandchildren behind.

As WABE notes, “Davis is one of tens of thousands of adults in the U.S. who did not receive automatic citizenship with adoption….Congress is now trying to address this loophole in federal law that has left many adoptees in limbo.”

Congress has had many opportunities in the past to close this inequitable, unethical loophole. I am among so many folks who hope that our Congress will recognize that all children brought here for purposes of international adoption, with the legal oversight of both the U.S. and the child’s country of origin, should have automatic citizenship.

Per WABE: “Nick Greene is a California-based adoptee who advocates for citizenship for all adoptees. He said sometimes, people find out they aren’t citizens only when they try to apply for Social Security or Medicare. Under the Child Citizenship Act, adoptees born before Feb. 27, 1983, are not able to obtain citizenship through their citizen parents.

“So that’s going to be like 40, 50, 60-somethings,” he said. “You grew up as an American. You lived as an American for 60-plus years. For some of them it’s been a decade they’ve been just doing this battle.”

Congress is considering two pieces of legislation that would retroactively grant citizenship to adoptees who did not automatically get it when they came to the U.S. The legislation also allows for people who were deported, like Mike Davis, to repatriate to the U.S. where he would be reunited with his family.”

Adoption legislation affects adoptees, who had no agency over the decisions made for them when they were minors. The legislation also affects the children and grandchildren of adoptees, and adoptees themselves when they are deep into adulthood, including at retirement age.

You can help by learning more, via Adoptees for Justice, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, and Adoptees United.

You can also help by donating and spreading the word about this GoFundMe for Mike, which is helping with his legal and medical costs. Many thanks.

Mike Davis is among the writers of “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees.”

KAAN, NAKASEC, Adoptee Citizenship, and a GoFund Me

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The time is long overdue for the passage of adoptee citizenship legislation, and, as understandably tired as some folks are, we need to gear up more than ever.

Action steps:

(1) See how you can help via Adoptees for Justice. You can click on the QR code in the photo below, which shows Jimmy Byrne, a Korean adoptee who spoke about citizenship at the 2023 KAAN conference.

Photo Description : The photo shows Jimmy Byrne, a Korean adoptee wearing glasses, on a panel at the KAAN conference. There is a QR code on the screen behind him, which has information about the work of Adoptees For Justice.

(2) Support deported adoptees, like Mike Davis. Any and all help is deeply appreciated. Please donate; please share the link.

Photo Description: This is a photo of Mike Davis, an Ethiopian adoptee, on the GoFundMe page that hopes to raise money for Mike’s legal costs so he can return to the United States.
He was deported to Ethiopia in 2005.

Some background info for this post: About a week ago I attended the national conference of KAAN, the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network. This was the second time I had attended this conference, and, as before, I was presenting a workshop with the wonderful Astrid Castro and Shelise Gieseke of Adoption Mosaic. I also attended several great workshops presented by others.

One was on Adoptee Citizenship, presented by folks from Adoptees for Justice and NAKASEC, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium. Both groups have been working on the issue of citizenship for many years, including citizenship for international adoptees.

Adoptees from South Korea make up the largest and now oldest group of international adoptees. As such, they have been active in advocacy work for decades, in South Korea and in their adoptive countries. Around 200,000 South Korean children have been brought to the Unites States for adoption; some 18-20,000 of that group are estimated to be without U.S. citizenship. Some have been deported; some do not know they are not citizens. Some are working on getting through the naturalization process.

The NAKASEC and KAAN efforts are not only for Korean adoptees. Adoptees for Justice (A4J), which has connections with NAKASEC and KAAN, is working for all international adoptees, advocating for full and retroactive citizenship.

At the KAAN workshop, the presenters talked about the legislative history of trying to get citizenship enacted. It seemed possible at the end of the last Congress, but failed again, probably for many reasons. I speculate on some of them here. Certainly there was a lot of time, energy, advocacy, prayers, and hope that went into the effort.

Advocates are working on citizenship legislation in the current session of Congress. It won’t be easy, with so much anti-immigrant sentiment and the upcoming elections. Groups like A4J (and I’m sure other groups) are looking at a variety of strategies, such as state and local government resolutions.

Please contact your legislators. Ask them to support citizenship for all international adoptees. Please help deported adoptees. Please spread the word that deported adoptees deserve to come home, and that all international adoptees deserve citizenship. Many thanks.

What Can We Do For Deported Adoptees?

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Yesterday I wrote a post titled The Shameful Reality of America’s Deportation of Adoptees. In April, I had written about The Loneliness of Deported Adoptees. It is not enough for me to write about this. I would be so grateful if you had a few minutes to help in any way. It could make a big difference for the adoptees who have been deported.

Here are some actions.

  • Share the information about the fact the United States deports international adoptees. Share it with anyone connected to adoption, as well as to those who have no connection.

  • Check whether your federal House Representative has sponsored the Equal Citizenship Act, HR 1386. If yes, thank them. If no, ask why not, and urge them to do so.

You can look up your Congressional reps here. This will give you info about your representatives.in both the House and Senate.

The bill has not yet been introduced in the U.S. Senate, as far as I know. Contact your federal Senator and ask whether they support citizenship for all international adoptees.

If you have a personal connection to adoption (adoptee, adoptive parent, birth/first parent, sibling of adoptee, grandparent of adoptee, etc.), let your House and Senate member know that.

  • Contact the National Council for Adoption and ask what actions they and their member adoption agencies are taking to help deported adoptees. They are in favor of the Adoptee Citizenship Act, and it is listed on their 2022 legislative advocacy page. If you have a personal connection to adoption (adoptee, adoptive parent, birth/first parent, sibling of adoptee, grandparent of adoptee, etc.), let them know that.
  • If you know of any lawyers who might be willing to help deported adoptees, please contact them. Feel free to let me know also, via the Contact page. I am happy to talk with them.
  • If you know any journalists or writers, or you are a writer yourself, please get the word out about the deportation of adoptees. I am happy to help with this, and can connect writers to the adoptees.
  • Please contact me if you would like to send an email or a package to a deported adoptee. The isolation and loneliness can be brutal, and a friendly word makes a big difference.
  • Please contact me if you would like to make a donation to a deported adoptee. Even a small amount can go a long way, and allows the adoptee to buy medications, toiletries, and food.

We are working on additional fundraising efforts, and would welcome any help.

Any one of these actions would be deeply appreciated. If you have other ideas, wonderful. Please let me know. Thank you very much.

The Shameful Reality of America’s Deportation of Adoptees

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Yes, the United States of America has welcomed thousands of children for international adoption. Americans love the stories of the orphans rescued, lives saved, futures secured.

The United States of America is also fine with deporting international adoptees, dumping them back to countries where they don’t speak the language and have no job, family, or friends.

Some talking points about deported international adoptees:

  • They entered the USA legally with the paperwork, oversight, and approval of the sending country and the United States.
  • They were legally adopted by at least one U.S. citizen; often both parents were U.S. citizens. Many were adopted by U.S. military officers or veterans.
  • They were over 18 years old when the Child Citizenship Act (CCA) of 2000 was passed, which granted citizenship only to adoptees 18 and younger. International adoption began in the US in the 1940’s and 50’s; thousands of adoptees who were adopted in the decades before the CCA were excluded from acquiring automatic citizenship.
  • The responsibility for citizenship is with the adoptive parents, not with the minor child being adopted. Adoption agencies share some responsibility for ensuring that the children they have placed acquire citizenship, even if the agency is not legally required to do so.

Why didn’t the parents get citizenship for their adopted children? There are many possible reasons. They didn’t know they were supposed to do so. They thought citizenship was automatic. They filed the papers but not correctly. The U.S. government made errors on the paperwork. The parents were estranged from their children, or abusive toward their children, and decided not to follow through with citizenship.

Why don’t the adoptees just file for citizenship as adults? If (and it’s a big If) they know they are not citizens, and they are over 18, they can file for naturalization. It is a lengthy, expensive process, and many adoptees do not have the documents required to file. The parents might have lost, thrown out, or misplaced the documents. The parents may have died, and no one knows where the documents are. The parents may refuse to give the documents to the adoptee.

Why would an adoptee get deported? Adoptees who cannot prove citizenship can be deported if they commit a crime. The type of crime can be relatively minor or a serious felony; that determination often depends on state law. It’s a felony for non-citizens to vote in elections (even if they don’t know they are not citizens). Adoptees have been subject to deportation for writing bad checks, burglary, firearms possession, marijuana possession, and so on.

If they commit a crime, shouldn’t they be punished? Of course. If an adoptee commits a crime and is convicted, they should serve their time—just like any American, like any family member.

They should not though then be deported. Deportation of a legally adopted person should not be allowed by the United States. It is unethical, inconsistent with the values of “family,” and is a slap in the face of the adoption community.

Do adoptees subject to deportation get legal representation? Yes. That’s a basic tenet of our judicial system. The reality is that many adoptees are inadequately represented, because knowledge of adoption law and of immigration law are not always part of an attorney’s expertise, including public defenders. Some adoptees, after serving their sentence, are then detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for long periods of time without a trial. Some give up. Some have great difficulty hiring and paying for an attorney who can actually represent them effectively. Some get terrible advice from their lawyers, who may not have any familiarity with the adoption laws in place at the time the adoptee entered the country (in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, etc.). Some are detained for months far from family. Some give up hope.

Once deported, it can be near impossible for an adoptee to find an attorney who will take a case pro bono. Most adoptees have great difficulty finding legal work once deported: they don’t speak the language, they don’t know the culture, they have trouble getting legal permits.

Once deported, the adoptees, welcomed as cute children at the airport with balloons and happy smiles, receive no help or support from the US government, including at the US Embassy. They have to depend on family and friends back home, and on strangers in the country.

Once deported, they cannot receive Social Security, even if they earned it for years, nor Medicare nor Medicaid. Many older deported adoptees have serious medical issues for which getting treatment is difficult.

Many deported adoptees go into deep depression, experience tremendous loneliness, and feel forgotten by the country they love and grew up in. Many feel forgotten by family and friends, and many are correct about that.

Why doesn’t Congress help them?

Strong anti-immigrant views have been pervasive in our U.S. Congress for decades. International adoptees, fairly or unfairly, enter the U.S. as immigrants, with all the legally required paperwork. I would argue that adoptees, as children being adopted by US citizens, should be considered separately. This is admittedly a controversial position in the immigration community and in Congress.

Why has Congress has failed to pass an Adoptee Citizenship Act that would grant citizenship to adoptees not included under the 2000 CCA?

Congress has failed to do this for years, since 2015 at least. Beyond the sweeping anti-immigrant feelings, here are some reasons:

  • Some Members of Congress don’t consider adoptees to be real members of a family, and thus may feel it’s no big deal to deport them.
  • Some Members of Congress don’t recognize or don’t care that international adoptees did not have agency in being brought to this country, nor in their acquisition of citizenship, despite being adopted with all the required paperwork and government approval.
  • Some Members of Congress are afraid of a slippery slope of “illegal immigrants” being allowed to remain in the US.
  • Some Members of Congress have no sense of ethics, nor an understanding of adoption.
  • Some Members of Congress feel if someone has committed a crime, then deportation is what they deserve, regardless of how they arrived in the US.

I struggle with this question, to be honest. I’d love to hear someone explain it to me in a way that shows honor and decency on the part of our Congress.

That said, I am grateful to those in Congress who have sponsored adoptee citizenship legislation, and who recognize it as fair and appropriate. I wish there were more of them with the courage and patriotism to do so.

Global Ramifications of a South Korean Adoptee’s Lawsuit

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When the South Korean Court announced its decision yesterday on Korean adoptee Adam Crapser’s lawsuit against both Holt Children’s Services adoption agency and the South Korean government, it created an incredible precedent in the world of adoption.

The lawsuit alleged that Holt and the South Korean government acted illegally and deceptively in the processing and oversight of Crapser’s adoption.

The court decision is groundbreaking for international adoptees:

  • Holt Children’s Services, a Korean adoption agency, was successfully sued by an adoptee in his country of origin. This is, as far as I know, unprecedented.
  • Holt has been ordered to pay financial damages to the adoptee for illegal acts.
  • The court found Holt responsible to make sure the adoptee had US citizenship, and to report that to South Korea’s Minister of Justice.

Ramifications/Possible Next Steps

I am not a lawyer, but I believe Holt and Crapser can appeal this decision. (The court did not agree with all of Crapser’s allegations.)

This decision could create legal standing for other adoptees to sue Holt Children’s Services, or, I suppose, to sue other adoption agencies.

Rumblings of a class action suit have rolled around the adoption community for years. Perhaps this opens that door.

US citizenship for adoptees was not automatic when Adam was adopted. His criminal record and inability to prove citizenship led to his deportation, despite the adoption having been approved by both Korea and the US. There are said to be thousands of adoptees who entered the US before the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 who do not have citizenship: some know they are not citizens, some don’t know they are not, and some have been deported. At least one deported Korean adoptee, Philip Clay, died by suicide. Many others, in Korea and elsewhere, are struggling.

That a Korean court has held the adoption agency responsible for the adoptee’s acquisition of citizenship in the adoptive country could have huge ramifications for deported adoptees and those without citizenship. I imagine both the US and countries of origin/sending countries are looking at this decision closely.

Crapser’s lawsuit also made allegations against the South Korean government, and the court apparently did not agree to those. More information about this is expected soon.

Judgement on Adam Crapser’s Suit Against Holt and South Korea Could Be Announced Tuesday

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On Tuesday May 16, a South Korean court is expected to rule on adoptee Adam Crapser’s suit against the adoption agency Holt International and the government of the Republic of Korea.

From my 2022 blog post Adam Crapser vs. Republic of Korea and Holt International: “Obvious international human rights violations:

“In January 2019, Korean adoptee Adam Crapser filed a petition against the Korean government and Holt Children’s Services Inc. for allegedly violating his rights during his adoption process. ‘Although the plaintiff’s story garnered worldwide media attention, his lawsuit represents a historic legal first..this petition is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption.'” 

Lee Kyeung-eun, the director of Human Rights Beyond Borders), wrote in The Korea Times article “Adam Crapser vs. The Republic of Korea,” that “This petition filed by Shin Song-hyuk (better known as Adam Crapser) is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption.”

Kyeung-eun cites several “Alleged illegal acts of Republic of Korea” as well as “Alleged illegal acts of Holt Children’s Services Inc,” and argues that “The plaintiff (Crapser) has suffered the following rights violations: the right to know and preserve his true identity due to the fraudulent falsification of his orphan registration (a birth registration reserved for children without their parents’ information); damages from physical, mental and emotional abuse inflicted in the course of the adoption, the dissolution of the adoption and the consequential multiple moves to other homes and the effects of those events; violation of the right to acquire and have the nationality of his adoptive country; violation of personality rights and the right to pursue happiness due to deportation.”

After being brought to the United States for adoption at 3 years old, Crapser was horribly abused and abandoned by two adoptive families. He got into legal trouble, and faced deportation because he could not prove his US citizenship.

Ultimately Adam was deported by the Unites States back to South Korea in 2016, leaving behind a wife and 3 daughters. He is not the only deported international adoptee: According to the New York Times, “Deportation a Death Sentence to Adoptees After a Lifetime in the United States.”

I wrote about Adam’s deportation for Slate. I’ve been writing about the tragedy of adoptee deportation for years. While Crapser is not the only internationally adopted deportee, he is the first to sue both his adoption agency and the government of his country of origin. Many governments and adoption agencies are likely watching this case closely.

I will post more when we hear about the court’s decision. May there be justice for adoptees.