
Thousands of adoptees thought they were  US citizens but learned they are not - lisper
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/thousands-of-adoptees-thought-they-were-us-citizens-but-learned-they-are-not/2016/09/02/7924014c-6bc1-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_adoptees-8pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
======
drinchev
I know a girl that had to leave the U.S. >24< years after her parents brought
her there ( she was a baby ).

The story ( as far as I can remember ) is that a family of Germans moved to
the U.S. with their 1 year old child. 24 years later the child graduated
university and ... needs to apply for a green card or permanent VISA.

US government refused, so she had to come back to Germany.

I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In
most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you
spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think
it's 7 yrs ).

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I 've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship._

We've got a lot of racist assholes, basically. Particularly ironic for a
country that was founded on immigration. These laws, and their heavy-handed
enforcement, are mainly targeted at keeping out Mexicans. European and Asian
immigrants are collateral damage, essentially.

Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was
Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls
because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class.
They've also banned minarets on mosques, apparently--I have no clue how they
pretend to justify that. Xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.

~~~
drinchev
The two stories doesn't match.

It was a decision of the girls ( or their father ) [1] not to be naturalized.
They could've just did the swim with the boys and they would've got their
citizenship.

On the other hand my friend had NO CHOICE in her 24 year stay in the U.S. to
get a citizenship ( although she followed all the rules / laws of the country
).

[1]
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-c...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-
citizenship-muslim-girls-refuse-swim-boys-islam-immigration-
europe-a7111601.html)

~~~
jacquesm
If you think underage muslim girls are normally going to go against the wishes
of their father then you clearly don't know much about the kind of patriarchy
they are exposed to. Fathers word > law.

~~~
dragandj
Maybe in Middle East. Not in Switzerland.

~~~
jacquesm
You'd think so but in plenty of those households when you cross the threshold
you might as well be in the middle east. I've had plenty of contact with
Muslim families living in the West and the range is very wide, given that
these girls were not allowed to swim with the boys it isn't a wild guess at
all that their family is on the traditional side of the spectrum.

~~~
dragandj
I know. I meant: maybe that is acceptable in Middle East, but it is not
acceptable in Switzerland.

------
lisper
What was most shocking to me was that some of these kids managed to get U.S.
passports without being citizens. How does _that_ happen? I'm a first
generation immigrant. My parents were naturalized when I was 10. AFAIK that
means that I automatically acquired their naturalization. But I do not have a
naturalization certificate of my own, and I don't have a copy of my parents
certificate. I do hold a U.S. passport, but that is apparently not ironclad
proof of citizenship. I'm frankly not sure what I would do if Trump gets
elected and the brown shirts show up no my doorstep to haul my ass back to
Germany because my passport is invalid.

Ironically, my situation is a little less tenuous because I am the biological
child of naturalized immigrants rather than the adopted child of natural-born
citizens. Like so many things about this story, that seems so wrong.

~~~
epicureanideal
Really? Trump and the brown shirts? Do we need to compare everybody to Hitler?

I read an article recently that says he's more of an American version of
Italy's Berlusconi, and that seems more reasonable to me.

~~~
lisper
> Do we need to compare everybody to Hitler? Trump's policies are eerily
> reminiscent of Hitler's. Seriously, go look up some transcripts of Hitler's
> speeches, especially the early ones, and substitute "Muslim" for "Jew" and
> compare the results to Trump's rhetoric. Better yet, show the results to
> some Trump supporters and ask them if they agree with the sentiments. But I
> don't really care what color their shirts are. What I care about is: by what
> process do we decide who gets thrown out and who gets to stay. Trump's
> policy is: throw out everyone who can't prove they're here legally. Well, if
> a passport isn't good enough proof (and it manifestly is not) then I'm not
> sure I can prove I'm here legally. Will it be "that bad?" Maybe, maybe not.
> But if history teaches us anything it is that the time to speak up is before
> the answer becomes apparent.

~~~
michaelbuddy
ehhh No. Every election cycle sees both sides compared to hitler. Hitler
hyperbole is immature. And if you look at enough speeches or statements from
anyone you can compare to a dictator. Not that hard. You're also blatantly
excluding the things he's said about legal immigrants and muslims that are
overwhelmingly positive. You've made that choice to ignore positive
statements.

> "Trumps policy is...."

No. Trump has said time and again, we have immigration laws and we need to
follow them. That includes having more reinforced border fences or walls.
Already law. The end of sanctuary cities, which are basically localized laws
breaking federal law.

~~~
lisper
> No. Trump has said time and again, we have immigration laws and we need to
> follow them.

That's true, but that's not all he has said. He has also said that Mexicans
are rapists, that Muslims should be banned from the U.S., and that he "doesn't
know" about white supremacists. Among many, many other examples that I could
cite.

Trump is not an idiot. He's not going to grow a little mustache and call for a
"final solution to the Muslim problem." But it is definitely fair to compare
him to the Nazis because the Nazis provide a data point of what can happen
when you give political power to xenophobes, which Trump most certainly is.

~~~
michaelbuddy
You're referring to a speech, when Trump was specifically talking about
illegal immigration and yes there are rapists and murderers among them. He
also brought on stage mothers who have lost their children to these criminals.
Fact: illegal immigrants make up a significant portion of the prison
population.

Trump is also concerned with radical islamic terrorism. There is a case for
banning immigration from specific countries. We already do it, we also already
prohibit U.S. businesses from doing business in specific countries. You can
say his take on islamic terrorism / and islamic immigration is too hardline. I
don't agree. There are clearly trends of actual radicalization within even
second generation muslim immigrnts that require vigilance.

Also the "doesn't know" statement regarding supremist groups was him partially
hearing in his ear piece in a remote interview Tapper talking about disavowing
"groups" Why would Trump "not know" when his daughter is married to a Jewish
man? I noticed how you didn't bring up David Duke either and that's because
you know full and well Trump in 2000 said disparaging things about Duke not
that some 'disavowal' was needed. He has no association with any of them.

So you're saying it's fair to compare him to Nazi's when his daughter is
married to a Jewish man and he has many muslims living and staying in his
buildings and that he has repeatedly said he holds in high regard. Time to
face facts.

~~~
lisper
"There are rapists and murderers among them" is a very different statement
than "they are rapists", which is what Trump actually said. There are rapists
and murderers among the citizenry as well. That does not make "Americans are
rapists" a true statement.

> There is a case for banning immigration from specific countries

But that is not what Trump has proposed. He has proposed a ban on _Muslims_.
Muslim is a religion, not a nationality.

> partially hearing

That excuse has be thoroughly debunked.

> his daughter is married to a Jewish man

Jews are not the targets this time, Muslims are.

> he has many muslims living and staying in his buildings

Because he is not legally allowed to discriminate against them. Yet.

------
jzwinck
The more bizarre part is how the various federal agencies do not coordinate.
For example, the "fear they will be unable to collect Social Security benefits
they have paid into." This means these people are paying taxes to the IRS who
collects SS money from them yet they are "not eligible" to work in the US.
This is "impossible" but the tax man doesn't ask questions when people send
him money.

I think if someone has paid, say, 20% of their total lifetime earnings, with a
minimum of $50K over ten years, in taxes to the US government, and they have
not committed any crime, they should be given citizenship. This gives the USG
ten years to find anyone they'd rather not have in the country, and let them
leave before they contribute more than their fair share to a country that
rejects them.

~~~
puranjay
The problem with that is that it penalizes legal residents waiting for their
citizenship

My brother has been in the US for nearly 20 years. Started out as a grad
student, then as a H1-B. Took him more than 10 years just to get a green card,
then 5 years more to be eligible for citizenship.

All this while, he must have paid several hundred thousand dollars in taxes
(6+ figure income over 15 years)

Why should another immigrant get the same benefits as him faster than he could
by paying even less in taxes?

~~~
pkaler
> Why should another immigrant get the same benefits as him faster than he
> could by paying even less in taxes?

Because it's not a zero-sum game.

One person's right to citizenship does not erode another person's right to
citizenship.

------
pash
The legal history of the concept of citizenship in the United States is
remarkably circuitous. The original text of the constitution referred only to
citizens of individual states, never to citizens of the United States.
Consequently, federal law and jurisprudence lacked any conception of national
citizenship until the decision of _Dred Scott v. Sanford_ in 1856, in which
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney created the concept from whole cloth for the
purpose of declaring Scott, a slave, not to be an American citizen and
therefore not entitled to petition a federal court. The precedent held until
the constitutional amendments of Reconstruction rectified it, explicitly
introducing the concept of national citizenship into the constitution as a
side effect.

There has remained a great deal of ambiguity about who is entitled to American
citizenship by birth. Although the constitution as amended grants certain
rights only to national citizens, the amendments that made national
citizenship a part of the constitution failed to describe comprehensively who
is entitled to citizenship. As a consequence, the question of who is and who
is not a citizen, rather than being been decided on constitutional grounds,
has been left to Congress. The odd result is that ordinary federal law, not
the constitution itself, decides who is entitled to many fundamental
constitutional rights and protections, including the basic rights to live in
the United States and vote in national elections.

An interesting series of changes to the federal laws governing national
citizenship occurred in the years after World War II. Because thousands of
American soldiers and sailors were for the first time being permanently
stationed abroad, there arose the question of whether their children born
abroad had a right to citizenship. Federal law had previously granted
citizenship to all children of American citizens, but during this period the
laws were re-written to exclude the illegitimate children of military men with
foreign women from citizenship in most cases. Today the law deciding the
citizenship of children born abroad to a single American parent is a tangle of
considerations of the marital status of the parents, when the child first
visits American territory, how long he or she stays, etc.

I've sometimes wondered what the world might have been like in another several
generations if those exclusions hadn't been made; by that time, due to the
wonders of sexual reproduction, it's likely that tens or hundreds of millions
of people outside the United States would be able to find an American in their
ancestry, and therefore to claim American citizenship. Eventually, almost
everyone would be an American. What would the world be like if everyone were
entitled to vote in American elections (and obligated to pay American taxes)?

------
kevin_thibedeau
The most curious instance I've heard of this was a man who came in as a young
child and joined the Army (perfectly legal for non-citizens). While in the
service he was an MP and then took a job as a police officer after finishing
his service. The problem came that without citizenship he couldn't legally
work as a LEO and all of his arrests were technically invalid. As an MP,
though, he was working under the exclusive authority of the executive and no
such conflict was present.

------
rdtsc
I thought an executive decision is all it's needed but apparently not.

Interestingly, there is a special law to expedite naturalization for those who
"made an extraordinary contribution to the national security of the United
States or to the conduct of United States intelligence activities". But even
there it's a 5 person per year maximum.

[https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title8/html/USCODE...](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title8/html/USCODE-2011-title8-chap12-subchapIII-
partII-sec1427.htm)

Congress can change the laws obviously, wonder what the turnaround there could
be.

~~~
rcthompson
That sounds like a law written decades ago as a lure for high-value defectors
from the USSR during the Cold War.

~~~
jacquesm
More likely: those brought over from Nazi Germany to help with rocketry.

------
ap3
No reason not to pass the adoption citizenship act.

~~~
nickpsecurity
If they become citizens, they can vote. They might be likely as a whole to
vote for or against things that bother certain groups in Congress. That by
itself will be a reason for those parties to prevent them from being citizens.
We see the same thing with the islanders.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE)

~~~
stcredzero
That's simply putting political gamesmanship over humanity, in the most
inhumane way imaginable!

~~~
drdeadringer
Sounds like a perfect job for Congress. More at 11, here on Fox.

~~~
linkregister
I disagree with using "Congress" as a euphemism for the political party one is
in opposition to. Clearly a majority of Americans believe in their own
senators and representatives. It's the "other guys" who are bad. Call a spade
a spade.

~~~
drdeadringer
I was using the word "Congress" as I intended, which was to refer to Congress
as a whole.

------
erkose
This is just wrong. He entered the country legally. The Adoption Citizenship
Act seems like the right way to handle this.

~~~
rdtsc
It isn't, not without an amendment it seems. These people were too old to
qualify.

The reason the law was that way is to prevent loopholes like someone adopting
a 30 year old person and then using this law to naturalize them.

~~~
erkose
If he was entitled to citizenship at the time of his adoption, and his
adoptive parents failed to file the paperwork, then he should be entitled to
citizenship regardless of his age. There are certainly many ways to abuse the
system, but I prefer to err on the side of good faith.

~~~
rdtsc
> but I prefer to err on the side of good faith.

Usually though good faith and bureaucracy don't mix. It is dangerous to have
faith in bureaucracy. In a way that is what the parents did, how the girl at
the end said her parent just believed common sense would prevail and even if
there is a missing paper here and there, someone sitting across the desk will
understand and fix the error eventually.

------
nylsaar
Justin Ki Hong just needs run for president. Problem solved.

------
karma_vaccum123
I want to help this guy but I have to ask....how did the parents just "forget"
to get his citizenship complete????

~~~
taspeotis
“There wasn’t a lot of education to adoptive parents in the earlier time about
naturalizing their children or even what papers to keep, said Kessel, whose
organization is helping push for bills in the House and Senate.

