
Faith Nyasuguta
The United States has brought hundreds of thousands of international children into American families through adoption. However, a substantial number of these adoptees have faced a bureaucratic oversight that left them without U.S. citizenship, an issue that government agencies have been aware of for decades but have yet to resolve.
As a result, many adoptees now live in uncertainty, with some even facing deportation to their birth countries despite having been raised as American citizens. Advocates and adoptees have fought to change the laws, and a bipartisan coalition has supported related legislation in Congress for years. However, immigration-related gridlock has stalled these efforts, leaving thousands in limbo.
Intercountry adoption surged following the Korean War as American families sought children to adopt, driven by changes in access to birth control and societal shifts that led to fewer domestic adoptions. In response, adoption agencies worked quickly to connect U.S. families with children from abroad, often bypassing safeguards to ensure that adopted children acquired U.S. citizenship.
In these early years, the adoption process often involved state courts, which issued new birth certificates for adoptees listing their American parents as the legal guardians. However, because state courts do not have authority over federal immigration matters, these certificates did not grant U.S. citizenship.

Families who adopted internationally were expected to undergo a separate, costly, and time-intensive naturalization process to secure citizenship for their children. Many were unaware of this requirement, while others assumed that adoption alone was sufficient to establish legal citizenship.
In 2000, Congress attempted to rectify this issue by passing the Child Citizenship Act (CCA), which granted automatic citizenship to adopted children under the age of 18 at the time the law took effect. However, the law did not apply to adoptees born before February 27, 1983, leaving those born before this arbitrary cutoff stranded without citizenship.
Current estimates suggest that anywhere from 15,000 to 75,000 adoptees remain without legal status due to this gap in legislation. Despite efforts to pass additional legislation, attempts to close this loophole have repeatedly failed. The proposed Adoptee Citizenship Act, which has been introduced in Congress for nearly a decade, has faced delays and inaction, largely due to a polarized political climate around immigration reform.
The legislation has garnered support from diverse political and social groups, from liberal immigration advocates to conservative religious organizations, yet lawmakers’ reluctance to tackle immigration issues has left adoptees in a precarious position.
Many adoptees discover their lack of citizenship accidentally, often when applying for essential documents or services like passports, Social Security, or government benefits. In some cases, adoptees only realize their status when they are denied benefits they have contributed to for years.

One woman, for instance, was informed of her citizenship status upon being denied Social Security benefits after a lifetime of work. Others only learn of their citizenship gap during attempts to renew driver’s licenses or apply for financial aid. Efforts to resolve these issues through the naturalization process are often fraught with bureaucratic hurdles and substantial costs.
Adoptees are required to go through the same naturalization channels as recent immigrants, which involve filing applications, paying fees, enduring delays, and navigating rejections due to technical errors. However, even with these efforts, some adoptees are unable to obtain citizenship due to their visa status. Families eager to bring adopted children home as quickly as possible sometimes used temporary visas, not foreseeing the complications this would pose for their children’s citizenship status years later.
Many adoptees share stories that highlight the human impact of this oversight. One woman brought to the U.S. from Iran in 1972 by her father, an Air Force contractor, discovered her lack of citizenship only as an adult. Though she owns her home and works in corporate healthcare, she lives in constant fear that her status may one day lead to her deportation or ineligibility for benefits like Social Security.
Joy Alessi, adopted from Korea as an infant in 1967, learned as an adult that her parents had not completed her naturalization process. She lived in hiding for decades, fearful of the consequences of her citizenship status, until she was finally able to gain citizenship in 2019 at the age of 52. Alessi says that for years she was deprived of basic rights that U.S. citizens take for granted, such as access to educational loans.
Mike Davis was adopted from Ethiopia in the 1970s by an American soldier. Despite struggling with substance abuse issues in his youth, he eventually turned his life around, started a family, and became a productive member of society. However, he was later deported back to Ethiopia due to his criminal record, separating him from his family, who struggled in his absence.
Leah Elmquist served for a decade in the U.S. Navy, despite not being a citizen. Born in 1983, she missed the cutoff for automatic citizenship by only a few months. She describes her experience navigating the naturalization process as challenging, including facing intense fears about her status when former President Donald Trump was elected. She was eventually naturalized but only after enduring a stressful and prolonged journey.

A couple in California, Debbie and Paul, adopted two children with special needs from Romania in the 1990s. Due to their children’s lack of citizenship, they are barred from participating in international competitions and risk facing legal repercussions if their status is revealed. Debbie often lies awake at night worrying that her children, who are ill-equipped to live independently, would suffer in the event of detention or deportation.
Despite the broad bipartisan support behind the Adoptee Citizenship Act, the hyper-partisan environment in Congress has prevented its passage. Advocates fear that should Trump or a similarly anti-immigrant candidate take office, adoptees could be targeted in immigration raids. Trump has previously proposed sweeping immigration enforcement measures, which heightens the anxieties of adoptees without citizenship.
Religious groups, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, continue to push for the bill’s passage. Evangelical Christians, who see foreign adoption as a moral and religious calling, have advocated for closing the citizenship gap. “In this day and age in Congress, if not doing anything is an option,” says Hannah Daniel, the public policy director for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, “that is the bet I’m going to take.”
As adoptees and advocates push for legislative change, the U.S. continues to face questions over how it will address a decades-long oversight that affects thousands of lives. These adoptees, raised as Americans, seek the stability and rights their parents and society promised them, while the slow pace of legislative reform leaves many uncertain of their future in the country they call home.
The Adoptee Citizenship Act remains a beacon of hope, representing an opportunity for Congress to finally close the loophole and rectify a longstanding injustice.
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