Updating Registry Provision To Help Intercountry Adoptees
Editor’s note:; Under INA Section 249 (Registry) the immigration law enables certain individuals who have been present in the United States since January 1, 1972, the ability to apply for a lawful permanent residence, even if they are currently in the United States unlawfully.
Guest blogger: Tessa Puetzer, law student, University of San Francisco:
While researching to learn more about the Immigration Registry, I came across an article discussing how adjusting the Immigration Registry could help intercountry adoptees adopted by US citizen parents attain citizenship. That’s when I learned something shocking—for a certain subset of intercountry adoptees (who are now adults), they were not granted automatic citizenship and are still struggling to attain citizenship today.
This USA Today article outlines a few stories of the people who fall under this category. First, I’ll summarize a bit of history. Before the passage of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, intercountry adoptees adopted by US citizens parents were not granted automatic citizenship after completing the formal adoption process. They had to be naturalized. This created issues for some intercountry adoptees, such as lost paperwork preventing completion of naturalization, misinformed legal professionals and adoption agencies telling parents their children would automatically become citizens upon completing the adoption process, and adoptive parents failing to complete the naturalization process for their adopted children. The result? There are currently around 15,000-18,000 adult intercountry adoptees who do not have their deserved citizenship.
Congress had originally recognized this issue and passed the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 that stipulated that intercountry adoptees that were fully adopted by February 27, 2001 and had not yet turned 18 would be granted automatic citizenship moving forward. Originally, the bill had included language that included adults as well, but the issue was supposed to be addressed in the next congressional session. Then, 9/11 happened, and the window for providing citizenship to “foreigners” shut tight.
What is heartbreaking to read in these stories in the USA Today article is the shock many intercountry adoptees experienced when learning they were not, as they had believed, American citizens. Some of their parents had even falsely believed their adopted children were US citizens, figuring that citizenship would automatically be granted. Many found out they were not citizens when they went to apply for passports, jobs, or universities. Others found out after they were arrested.
ICE does not track the number of intercountry adoptees who have been deported, but the USA Today article told the story of Anissa Druesedow, who was adopted at 13 by US Army sergeant and his wife. She never had any reason to believe she was not a US citizen, as she had a driver’s license and social security number. Even in 1993, when she plead guilty to multiple charges related to property crime, her lack of citizenship was not brought up. Then, when she plead guilty to third-degree felony grand larceny in 2004, ICE issued a detainer and took her into custody. She was then informed she was not a citizen and deported from the country. Her appeal to the BIA failed as well because her adoptive parents had failed to get her naturalized before her 18th birthday. In March 2006, she was deported to Jamaica where she hadn’t been since she was 6 years old (having moved to Panama at 6 and lived there until 13).
It’s unacceptable for there not to be a readily available avenue for these adults, raised by Americans as Americans, to receive the automatic citizenship that should have been granted to them years ago. I was intrigued seeing that one solution, posited by Adoptee Rights Law Center, would be for Congress to update the Immigration Registry. The registry provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides a way for people continuously residing in the US without legal status to apply for admission as a legal permanent resident. It has been updated several times in the last 100 years and was last updated in 1986. Previously, the registry date had been updated generally every 20 years. It has now been almost 50 years, and the current Registry date is January 1, 1972.
Updating the Registry would not only help intercountry adoptees without legal status, it would help a large number of people who know America has their home to attain legal status. Although it does not seem politically feasible at the moment to pass such legislation considering the hateful rhetoric surrounding immigrants, we can only hope that legislators will soon be willing to consider making this long overdue change.
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