By Akemi Tamanaha, Associate Editor
As hard-working women in their 60s, Asian American adoptees Judy Van Arsdale and Emily Warnecke should be enjoying their retirement. Instead, they are being denied their retirement benefits and living under threat of deportation to their countries of origin, where they are unfamiliar with the culture and the language.
Van Arsdale and Warnecke are adoptees from two different families living in the United States without citizenship. They were adopted as children but their naturalization process was never completed.
Now, due to legal convictions from decades ago, they must also receive a pardon from California Governor Gavin Newsom in order to complete the naturalization process, gain access to important social services and end the threat of deportation.
“I’m hoping to get a pardon from Governor Newsom to enable me to live with dignity because I am now 65 years old, I have worked and paid into Social Security,” Van Arsdale said in an interview with AsAmNews.
Advocacy organizations Alliance For Adoptee Citizenship, Adoptees For Justice, Ahri Center, and NAKASEC are leading a pardon campaign for Warnecke and Van Arsdale called “California is Home.”
Nick Greene, who is working with the Alliance for Adoptee Citizenship as a consultant for the pardon campaign, told AsAmNews that Van Arsdale and Warnecke have spent years living in limbo.
“It’s been too long,” he said.
Both women say they have taken accountability for past legal issues and built better lives for themselves, but those lives are still in jeopardy without a pardon.
AsAmNews spoke with both Warnecke and Van Arsdale about their journeys as adoptees, their fight for citizenship and their hopes for the future.
Emily’s Journey
Warnecke was adopted as an infant from South Korea in 1964. She grew up in a predominantly White suburb of Los Angeles with her mother, father (a World War II veteran) and her six siblings. According to a personal essay she wrote on the pardon campaign’s website, she experienced “bigotry and racially motivated bullying.”
“I struggled to make sense of it, not least because my parents instilled in me a strong sense of pride in being American and the daughter of the military,” she wrote.
When she was 17, Warnecke gave birth to her son and got married. She says her former husband, who she has since divorced, was physically and emotionally abusive.
In 1984, Warnecke, while grieving the death of her mother, was committing theft and burglary. She wrote in her essay that she felt pressure from her then-husband to commit those crimes. During the legal proceedings, she discovered that she was not a citizen. She was given a green card but says she wasn’t told to apply for citizenship.
Warnecke and her father went to federal court to fight her status but did not succeed. She told AsAmNews that the process was hard for her father too.
In 1996, while struggling with her mental health, she was arrested for drug possession and eventually incarcerated. Her father passed away while she was in prison.
“It just, it really made me go through a lot of depression,” Warnecke said, reflecting on those difficult years.
After being released from prison, she used her certifications in aerospace to get a job as an inspector in the California aerospace industry. She worked hard, while completing court requirements and reckoning with her past mistakes. She remained in the aerospace industry for over ten years. But in her late 40s, life threw another challenge at her.
At 48, Warnecke was diagnosed with severe degenerative spinal disc disease.
“It was something in life that I wasn’t expecting to happen,” Warnecke said.
The progression of the disease means Warnecke can no longer work or drive a car. In California, she was eligible for some disability benefits that have since run out.
After her first arrest, Warnecke was placed under deportation proceedings, but her deportation order was rejected by the South Korean government. Despite the rejection, the threat of deportation still remains.
Warnecke has dreams of retiring in Georgia in a little house with a couple of acres of land where she can grow a few small crops, an interest she says she got from her father. But in order for those dreams to become reality, she must wait for her pardon.
Judy’s Journey
Judy Van Arsdale, 65, was born in Taiwan to an American soldier and a Taiwanese mother. After a difficult early childhood, Van Arsdale was adopted when she was 12 by a former U.S. Army doctor and his wife through the Pearl Buck Foundation.
In a personal essay, like the one Warnecke wrote for the pardon campaign, Van Arsdale explained that her adoption “did not unfold as anticipated.” She writes that she was physically and emotionally abused by her mother who viewed her as a threat.
The family moved to the U.S. when Van Arsdale was 16. The next year, she left her parents’ home after earning her G.E.D. She moved to California and enrolled in college. But with little to no familial support, Van Arsdale told AsAmNews she had a tough time making ends meet while paying for books and other school supplies. She began shoplifting to get by, eventually getting caught and convicted by law enforcement.
Despite her early hardships, Van Arsdale earned her nursing license. A minor patient complaint triggered a background check, which led her employers to discover she had not disclosed her past shoplifting convictions. Her license was put on probation, making it impossible for her to find another job.
Van Arsdale, feeling defeated, fell back into shoplifting and was later sent to Chowchilla Prison. After her release, she wrote in her personal essay, she sought professional help to confront her past traumas. Now, she says she has repaired many relationships in her life, including her relationship with herself. She continues to work hard, taking odd jobs to support herself.
But at 65, she was still without citizenship, unable to access benefits and uncertain about what the future holds. She told AsAmNews that all of the “unknowns” have been difficult, but she hopes that Governor Newsom will see the nuances in her situation and grant her a pardon.
“This is my home. This is my country,” she said.
Warnecke and Van Arsdale fight for other adoptees
The campaign to pardon Warnecke and Van Arsdale has gained momentum this year but both women have been fighting for themselves and other adoptees without citizenship for years.
The pair are also advocates for the Adoptee Citizenship Act, a bill previously reported on by AsAmNews. The bill would close a loophole created by the Child Citizenship Act, which automatically and retroactively granted adoptees citizenship if they were under 18 before February 2001.
The ACA, reintroduced into Congress this summer, would grant citizenship to the thousands of adoptees who were already 18 by the time the CCA passed. It would also enable deported adoptees without citizenship to return to their families and lives in the U.S.
Despite the stress surrounding their own situation, Van Arsdale and Warnecke spoke repeatedly about their concerns for other adoptees during their interviews with AsAmNews, particularly adoptees without citizenship who have already been deported.
“My struggles are eclipsed by the other adoptees who have been deported. That’s like the worst nightmare. They’re gone in their country. They have no connections. They have no language to survive on. They know nobody,” Van Arsdale said.
Both women are committed to continuing to push for their pardons and the passage of the ACA. Greene, among other advocates, hopes that the pair will eventually be able to enjoy retirement like other Americans their age.
“It’d be nice if they could just relax and not have this problem,” Greene said.
The petition for Judy Van Arsdale and Emily Warnecke is available here. The campaign’s website also features personal essays from both Van Arsdale and Warnecke explaining their journeys.
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