Sister Diaspora for Liberation urges the United States Congress to support the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015 (S2275) and Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2016 (HR5454), which are bipartisan bills that provide citizenship to individuals who were legally adopted to the United States as children but never obtained U.S. citizenship.
Since the 1940’s, an estimated 350,000 children have been internationally adopted by U.S. citizen parents. While children born to U.S. citizen parents are automatically citizens, their adopted children were not afforded this same right. As a result, thousands of adoptees do not have U.S. citizenship, barring them from government services, financial aid, home loans, and voting privileges, while also placing them at risk for deportation. The ACA will remedy this discriminatory situation as all children of American parents should be treated equally.
In October 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act (CCA), through which foreign-born children adopted by U.S. citizen parents automatically acquire U.S. citizenship. Prior to the passage of the CCA, intercountry adoptees and their parents were required to go through a lengthy and costly naturalization process. Although the intent of the CCA was to ensure that all intercountry adopted children of U.S. citizen parents receive automatic U.S. citizenship, it failed to accomplish this goal as it left out the thousands of adoptees born before 1983.
The Adoptee Citizenship Act simply supports the original intent of the CCA by ensuring that all intercountry adoptees that were adopted by U.S. citizen parents have U.S. citizenship. We ask Congress to close the loophole left by the CCA immediately by passing the Adoptee Citizenship Act.
For more information and to get involved please visit the Adoptee Rights Campaign Website.