A new bill in Congress—supported and driven by Holt International—will no doubt lull noncitizen intercountry adoptees to apply for U.S. citizenship, only to find out the hard way that the bill’s promise of “automatic” citizenship is a false and dangerous ruse. Don’t fall for it. Don’t support it. There’s a far better bipartisan bill in Congress already.
Why the Holt CIA Act Is So Bad (It’s Actually Known as the CIA Act)
Holt International has been centrally involved in drafting and pushing the CIA Act (the Citizenship for International Adoptees Act), a bill introduced by Utah Senator Mike Lee. Over the last few months advocates (including myself) have been pressuring Holt not to move forward with it, asking them to withdraw it and support the PAAF Act instead. Holt’s response? Silence, then plowing ahead. I wrote this letter to them in May (the draft bill at that time was slightly different) and received no response, not even an acknowledgement it was received. The response other advocates was the same: get lost.
Here’s the actual bill and here’s a very short fact sheet about what the bill will do (and not do). I’ve also prepared a far more comprehensive legal and wonky analysis, and I’ll post that soon. If you want the skinny right now, though, without reading any further, here it is: Do not Support this Bill. Oppose it. Here are a few good reasons why:
- It’s ridiculously complex and structurally unsound. Rather than supporting a simple bipartisan adoptee citizenship bill that is currently active in Congress, this one’s a complex and dangerous monster. It sets up at least fifteen separate criminal or moral categories as tools to test qualifications for citizenship; institutes U.S. immigration law’s far-reaching “good moral character” inquiry; includes a clause related to criminal gangs, and requires comprehensive criminal background checks—all with no limitation as to how far back immigration officials can search to find something to disqualify you. Under this bill, intercountry adoptees who were brought here as toddlers, and have been in the United States for decades, are presumed to be criminals—until they prove by a preponderance of the evidence that they are not.
- It doesn’t read the room. Seriously, introducing a crimmigration-focused citizenship bill when U.S. citizens are being detained and at least two intercountry adoptees are currently in deportation proceedings? Introducing a bill that will create a class of intercountry adoptees who do not qualify and are thus targeted for removal from the United States? Get a clue. This is not the time, Holt, to push a bill with punitive consequences for adoptees who may, mistakenly believe this bill will secure them U.S. citizenship.
- It’s double abandonment. The bill eliminates a path of return for previously deported adoptees, the people who have been harmed the most by a U.S. intercountry adoptee policy that is unique in the world. In addition, for noncitizen adoptees who have not been deported but for whatever reason are not actually in the U.S. on the day the bill is enacted: well, tough luck. You don’t qualify. You must be physically present in the U.S. on the enactment date. Traveling or living temporarily abroad? Nothing for you.
- It continues to punish intercountry adoptees. The list of disqualifying factors is long. Almost all drug convictions are disqualifying. So is burglary—even a misdemeanor charge. The bill sets no time limit to review the facts of your life, so criminal justice interactions decades ago can tank your application and potentially put you into deportation proceedings. Continuing the United States’ failure to understand the issue, a sibling who is a U.S. citizen with the same conviction serves a sentence and moves on. That sibling’s noncitizen adoptee brother is denied citizenship and placed into deportation proceedings. That’s how bad this bill is—a trap for those who deserve and want U.S. citizenship but do not meet the bill’s overreaching requirements.
- It’s not “automatic” citizenship. It’s “naturalization-lite.” While the bill and its supporters use the language of “automatic” citizenship, it does not deliver anywhere near that promise. The bill is built on top of immigration law’s complex naturalization and crimmigration framework, with a path to deportation if you do not qualify. The bill will require fingerprints and criminal background checks, interviews by immigration officers, and moral character inquiries that are broader than what actual naturalization applicants face—all without naturalization’s time limits, waivers, or appeal rights. The only real advantage over naturalization in this bill is that there is no civics test or English language test, and it modifies the evidentiary burden for those who voted unlawfully or made false claims to U.S. citizenship and claim it was innocently done.
- A better bipartisan bill already exists. First, every major remedial citizenship law of the last seventy years has applied retroactively to capture people left behind by flawed immigration policy. This bill instead draws another arbitrary line and leaves another generation behind—the same mistake Congress made in 2000. The Protect Adoptees and American Families Act, already active in Congress today, does what this bill refuses to do: actually provides automatic citizenship for adoptees left behind a quarter century ago, plus provide a more limited path of return for about 30 previously deported adoptees. The PAAF Act is simple, understandable, and smart. It’s the bill to support, not this monstrous bill brought to life by Holt International.
Making Sure You Don’t Freak Out
This is for my clients and intercountry adoptees in the U.S who are already U.S. citizens but need proof of that citizenship, specifically with a certificate of citizenship. This bill, which has only been introduced in Congress and is not even close to becoming law, does not apply to you. I acknowledge and have seen fear from many of you, and a bill like this will not make things better, simply because it focuses on a presumption that adoptees are criminals who, despite being brought to this country as infants and young children, do not deserve citizenship. If it helps, though, the bill excludes most intercountry adoptees, and that’s also part of its problem.
Stay tuned. I wanted to get this out quickly once I saw that the bill had dropped. We’ll have more information, including actions you can take, to help get this thing tanked.
