The Child Citizen Act of 2000 granted international adoptees coming into the United States immediate citizenship. This act, however, did not provide retroactive citizenship for adoptees adopted before that date. Many adult adoptees are discovering that, if their parents didn’t file citizenship for them, they are not citizens of the United States. These adoptees are put in a tenuous situation and can face deportation to a country they do not remember.
This past week the Senate introduced the Adoptee Citizenship Act (S. 2275). It’s co-signers are Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Senator Dan Coates (R-IN), and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR). It gives retroactive citizenship to all international adoptees regardless of when they were adopted as well as a clear pathway for deported adoptees, who’ve served their time and resolved their criminal histories, to come back to the US. The bill rights the loophole in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. It’s significant on a personal level for thousands of adoptees who, through no fault of their own, were not given their citizenship promised to them by the US government, their adoptive parents, and adoption agencies. It’s significant for the thousands of deported adoptees who have had to deal with a lot of struggles for, in most cases, minor mistakes. It’s also significant in that it’s the first US federal law that is being addressed, crafted, and pushed through the legislative process by adoptees.
So what can you do? Please call your lawmakers in support of the Adoptee Citizenship Act. You can do so quickly and easily via 18 Million Rising. The simple link to do so is here: http://action.18mr.org/aca-2015/
Furthermore, you can spread the word and encourage your friends, family members, neighbors, etc to fight on behalf of adoptees. The bill still needs to go through committee before it’s sent to the floor for a vote. The more Senators hear from their constituents, the better. We’re counting on you!
Red Thread Broken 
Im happy for this bill and what it stands for but I disagree that this bill is just for the adopted. This bill is flawed and leaves 1000’s in limbo. What about those who were not adopted but could have benefited from the Child Citizenship Act being retroactive. There are 1000’s of people out there who were already over the age of 18 when the CCA went into effect and should have been made automatic citizens when the the law went into effect. If your going to amend the act dont give preference to those adopted but work to make the entire Act retroactive. There are 1000’s of people whose 1 parent was a citizen and they qualified for citizenship status under the Act but were aged out. Both adopted and non adopted kids who were either in immigrants status or work permit status. They should fix the entire Act to effect all who the act addresses not just the adopted. Thanks
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Daniel is absolutely right.
The proposed bill is flawed from the perspective of those people that are not adopted and are children of US citizens that fall out of the CCA’s time/age limit.
The bill should concentrate itself on being as close as possible to Mary landrieu’s s1222 bill, reapeling the age limit.
The only real way to close the CCA’s loopholes is to grant everyone the same rights.
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