- Up to 200,000 international adoptees in the US are at risk of detention or deportation by the Trump administration because they were never granted US citizenship, according to a new report.
- Many adoptive parents failed to complete the citizenship process for their children who were born overseas, leaving tens of thousands without legal status despite living in the US for most of their lives, The New York Times reports.
- "Most immigrants know from the very beginning what they have to do to gain legal status,” Minnesota-based family law attorney Mónica Dooner Lindgren told the publication. “But many adoptees have never questioned whether or not they have it, until now.”
- The Trump administration's immigration raids are especially concerning for people living in Minnesota, which has one of the highest rates of international adoption of any US state.
- Past legislation, such as a 2001 law, granted automatic citizenship to adoptees under 18 but excluded older individuals. A new bipartisan bill, the Protect Adoptees and American Families Act, aims to address these gaps.
IN FULL
Roughly 200,000 children who were adopted overseas now at risk for deportation from US, lawyers say
