July 2020

“A Woman Without a Country: Adopted at Birth and Deportable at 30” is a must-read. The New York Times story is beyond belief except that cases such as these are true, and too common. From the article:

It was on the eve of getting married in 2012 that [Ms. Trimble] realized there was something amiss in her all-American upbringing. Adopted as an infant from Mexico, she discovered that what she thought was a minor mix-up in her paperwork was something else entirely. Eventually, she realized that not only was she not American, she did not, in the government’s view, belong in the United States at all.

This year, a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services arrived in the remote corner of western Alaska where Ms. Trimble cooks for homeless people and where her husband, John, is the only dentist in town.

“You are not authorized to remain in the United States,” it said, ordering her to depart the country within 33 days or face deportation.”

July 7, 2020 New York Times, by Miriam Jordan

Rebecca Trimble’s adoptive parents may not have understood the rules when they crossed the Mexican border with their three-day-old baby 30 years ago, but we do.

We adoptive parents are responsible to make sure our kids are legal US citizens. Check your files. Ensure you have a Certificate of Citizenship with your child’s correct name on it. A COC is the only irrefutable, non-expiring proof of US citizenship.

According to the Adoptee Rights Campaign, “at least 35,000 people in the United States lack American citizenship because their adoptive parents failed to secure it for them.”

This story is tragic.

Link to US Department of State for COC requirements.