Today, April 19th, is the first Adoptee Citizenship Act Day of Action (ACA). Adoptees and allies from across the country will be meeting with representatives to support the bill’s passage in both the Senate and House of Representatives. The Day of Action is being co-sponsored by National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC), 18 Million Rising, Gazillion Strong, the Adoptee Rights Campaign (ARC), and the Korean American Coalition (KAC). #citizenshipforalladoptees
The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA 2000) was passed with the intention of providing automatic U.S. citizenship for international adoptees. It has, however, a serious loophole: its provisions do not apply to adoptees who were 18 year of age or older when it went into effect on February 27, 2001.
Because of this gap, many intercountry adoptees (estimates have been as high as 23,000 U.S. adoptees from Korea alone) have been left without this critical legal safeguard. There are two primary reasons for this: adoption agency failure to confirm that citizenship has been obtained by children placed through their services and adoptive parent failure to complete the necessary requirements.
When agencies and parents fail to uphold their responsibilities, adoptees bear the outcome. Some obtain citizenship through their own efforts, but those who do not (sometimes because they are unaware they are not citizens) are at risk of violating U.S…
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