Tag Archives: adoptive parents

Adoptees Support the Abolition of Adoption?

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Adoption Mosaics’s November 9 “We the Experts”panel will feature adoptees who favor the abolition of adoption.

This has to be among the most complex issues in adoption, which overflows with complexity. It’s not a simple issue nor an easy conversation. I know many adoptees who favor abolition. Some had terrible experiences because of adoption. Some love their adoptive family and hate the adoption industry. Some see adoption’s complicity with capitalism and imperialism, along with white saviorism, as more than enough reason to abolish adoption.

And it’s not because they want children to languish, to be unsafe, to die in orphanages, to be aborted, or to suffer in any way. Ideas like family preservation, adequate resources, legal guardianship, systemic change, the dynamics of power and privilege, organized abandonment, and more, I imagine, will be discussed.

These are my ruminations. The best approach is, of course, to hear from the experts, the adoptees themselves.

This Saturday, November 9, you have the chance to do just that. I will be there. We non-adoptees don’t talk or ask questions or make comments—we agree to listen and learn. Whatever connection you have to adoption, please join this conversation. You can register here.

The notion of abolishing adoption is a tough one for many folks; at the same time, it is increasing in the adoption community. “Abolition” is itself is a term that raises controversy and confusion, along with “reparations.” These words need to be parsed thoughtfully; all have nuance and depth.

I have no doubts the panelists—JinYoung Kim, Lina Vanegas, Marly Osma de Forest, and Schai Schairer—will be passionate, insightful, and challenging. As de Forest says on the Adoption Mosaic IG page, this will be an opportunity “to spend time with other adoptees imagining more expansive, holistic, and trauma-informed practices of care that do not demand severance and possession.”

Full disclosure: I am a consultant at Adoption Mosaic, an adoptee-led, adoptee-centric organization providing resources and support to all members of the adoption constellation.

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 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,



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.”

“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.

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.














As China Ends Adoptions, Media Reports & Adoption Agencies Focus on Prospective Parents. There’s a Much Bigger Picture.

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China’s recent decision to end intercountry adoption has evoked a range of responses in the adoption community. As historically has been the case, the focus is almost exclusively on adoptive parents, rarely interviewing or quoting adult Chinese adoptees nor Chinese birth parents.

The National Council on Adoption, whose members are adoption agencies and adoption attorneys, has been vocal about the closing, though only from the perspective of the prospective adoptive parents who may not be able to adopt from China, despite having referrals of children. From NCFA’s Action Center:

“Urge Congress to ask State Department get clarity from China on in-process adoptions. 

Families in the process of adopting from China recently received the devastating news that the country is ending all intercountry adoptions. Hundreds of U.S. families who were matched with a child and approved to adopt from China have patiently waiting for years – with China having suspended adoptions due to the COVID pandemic. After such a long wait, and significant financial and emotional costs, these families are being given very little information on the future of adoption in China. Children and families deserve better. (Emphasis in original.)

Contact your U.S. representative and senators today and urge them to encourage the U.S. Department of State to ask China for clarity on in-process adoptions and to resume intercountry adoption.”

NCFA has not, as far as I know, called for any support for Chinese adoptees who may be struggling with China’s decision, nor any statements about how adoption agencies will assist with searches and reunions for Chinese birth/first families.

The plight of the prospective adoptive parents has, as usual, permeated national and global news reports, most of which mention only prospective adoptive parents. I understand the sadness of the prospective parents, many of whom have waited for years. I am not dismissing their emotions.

I would though argue that this event–China’s ending of international adoptions–deserves far more depth in media coverage.

If we are ever going to have genuine critical thinking on adoption policy, adoptees and their birth parents must be included equitably in these media reports and in policy-making.

Washington Post: “China shut down foreign adoptions. This family doesn’t want to give up.” No Chinese adoptees or birthparents are quoted.

New York Times: “China Stops Foreign Adoptions, Ending a Complicated Chapter.” A Danish-Korean adoptee is quote, along with non-adopted Chinese scholars and researchers. No Chinese adoptees or birthparents are quoted.

New York Times: “An Era of Chinese Adoption Ends, and Families Are Torn Over Its Legacy.” Adoptive parents and Chinese adoptees are quoted in the article; Chinese birth parents re mentioned.

CNN: “China is ending foreign adoptions of its children. That leaves hundreds of American families in limbo”

The Guardian: “China says it is ending foreign adoptions, prompting concern from US–US diplomats seeking clarity for hundreds of families in the process of international adoption.” No Chinese adoptees or birthparents are quoted.

Chinese adoptees have been speaking out, and they have a variety of perspectives. I wrote about some of them here.

One article not included in my post is a New York Times opinion piece by Cindy Zhu Huijgen, described as “a Dutch journalist based in China and a former adoptee.” (I don’t know what “former adoptee” means here.) She wrote I Was Adopted From China as a Baby. I’m Still Coming to Terms With That. An excerpt: “On Sept. 5, at the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily press briefing, conflicting emotions swirled inside me as I nervously raised my hand to ask a government spokeswoman about reports, then still unconfirmed, that international adoptions would be stopped. When she announced that what had essentially become a legalized form of child trafficking was indeed now over, it felt cathartic.

But any relief I feel is tempered by knowing that China’s government will probably never fully acknowledge the system’s abuses. I’m still angry — at the fraught legacy of the adoptions, at the enduring focus on prospective parents’ feelings instead of the children’s and when people imply that I should be grateful for having been adopted.”

Hearing from adopted adults and from birth/first parents is critical to reframing adoption and to thinking critically about it. Then genuine change can occur, and the needs of vulnerable children and families can be met in a transparent, effective, fair way,


An Ethiopian Adoptee is Raising Funds for His Ethiopian Cousin’s Vital Surgery: Please Help

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Reshid Huth is a young adult Ethiopian adoptee from Afar, adopted to the U.S.. Reshid has returned to Ethiopia several times since his adoption, including a recent solo trip, where he met a 4-year-old cousin, Hassen.

Hassen has a serious heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. He needs an urgent, complex surgery.

Reshid has made it his goal to help his little cousin get the life-saving surgery he needs. A hospital in Addis Ababa can perform the surgery

Now, Reshid is working to raise funds for Hassen’s life-saving heart surgery, and for the follow- up cleft palate surgery.

Every donation brings hope to Hassen and his family.

And, it helps Reshid meet his goal to help. I am absolutely inspired by Reshid and his efforts to help his little cousin and family.

Please donate to Reshid’s GoFundMe. Please share the GoFundMe link with others. Many thanks.

Personal note: I am the grandmother of a 4-year-old, and I can only imagine what Hassen’s family is going through. I am also friends with Meghan Walsh, Reshid’s adoptive mom. Meghan is the founder of Roots Ethiopia, and a strong proponent of family and of Ethiopia. I’ve “borrowed” some of the language here from a post by Meghan, and want to acknowledge that. Please help Hassen; he is surrounded by love and compassion, and needs this life-saving surgery.