Bill could grant citizenship to thousands of intercountry adoptees

by Akemi Tamanaha, Associate Editor

Thousands of intercountry adoptees, many Asian American, lack citizenship, despite living in the U.S. for decades since they were children. They have spent decades working and paying taxes like other citizens but cannot access key social services. Many are also under threat of deportation, and several have already been deported to a country they are unfamiliar with.

The Adoptee Rights Campaign estimates that 49,000 intercountry adoptees do not have U.S. citizenship. An adoptee-led advocacy group called Adoptees 4 Justice, says that those without citizenship were adopted from 28 different countries. They also note that 18,603, are Korean Americans, due largely to the mass adoption of Korean children (around 150,000) after the Korean War in 1953.

A reintroduced bill in Congress called the Adoptee Citizenship Act would close a legal loophole and grant those adoptees citizenship. The bill has received bi-partisan support, introduced in the Senate by Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) and Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE).

Before the early 2000s, U.S. citizens who adopted children from other countries were required to complete the naturalization process for those children once they were living in the U.S. But thousands of parents, or their legal representatives, never completed the naturalization process, leaving their children without citizenship.

According to Jung-Woo Kim, National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC), many adoptees didn’t find out they were without citizenship until they were adults, often when applying for social services.

Judy Van Arsdale, 65, who was adopted from Taiwan learned that her naturalization process was not completed when she was in college trying to apply for a passport. Now, despite working and paying taxes in the U.S. for years, she is being denied access to Medicare and her social security retirement benefits. In an interview with AsAmNews, she described her situation as an “egregious act.” 

It seems strange that children who are legally adopted by U.S. citizens would not automatically be granted citizenship. For decades, this was the case, but in 2000, Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act, which automatically gave citizenship to intercountry adoptees under the age of 18. It also retroactively granted citizenship to adoptees without it, but only if they were under 18, a loophole that left thousands stuck in the same place.

The Adoptee Citizenship Act would close that loophole and grant U.S. citizenship to foreign-born children lawfully adopted by U.S. families who turned 18 years old before the effective date of the CCA (February 27, 2001). Rep. Smith says it would give them “full access to their rights as American citizens.”

The bill would also grant citizenship to adoptees deported for violating immigration law or for previous criminal convictions, “pending a background check and the resolution of any outstanding crimes with the appropriate law enforcement agency.”

Adoptees for Justice says it is aware of 50 cases of adoptees without citizenship who have been deported to the country they were adopted from, separated from their family and friends in the U.S. They are forced to live in an unfamiliar country, learning a language they do not speak. Nick Greene, a consultant for an advocacy organization called Alliance for Adoptee Citizenship (AAC), said he met some deported adoptees when he lived in Korea for a year. 

“It’s pretty harsh,” Greene told AsAmNews.

Greene himself is a Korean American adoptee. He is working with the AAC as a pardon consultant for Van Arsdale and another adoptee named Emily Warnecke. Both need pardons from California Governor Gavin Newsom to restore their immigration status.

The path forward

The Adoptee Citizenship Act is not a new piece of legislation. According to Kim, it was first introduced back in 2015. Kim told AsAmNews that the bill has been reintroduced several times since then. In 2022, it was passed by the House of Representatives but ultimately died in the Senate without going to a vote. 

Greene told AsAmNews that the politics surrounding the bill have been a source of frustration for advocates. 

Although the bill has bipartisan support, it still carries a stigma because the issue is related to immigration. Kim says some Congress members don’t want to touch an immigration bill unless it is about border security. Others object to language in the bill that includes adoptees who have criminal records. 

Advocates are calling on community members to help raise awareness. 

“We need the community’s involvement. Without their support, it’s very hard for us to push this bill forward,” Kim said.

Warnecke, 60, an adoptee who cannot access her disability benefits because she is not a citizen, urged community members to speak up.

“Call our congressional leaders, our senators to support the bill,” she said. 

This article is part of a two-part series. The second part of the series, which will be published tomorrow, discusses the pardon campaign for Van Arsdale and Warnecke. 

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