FAQ: U.S. Citizenship and Intercountry Adoptees

Information about intercountry adoption and US citizenship, including how Congress could fix a loophole that denies US citizenship to thousands of intercountry adopted people today.

Current Info: Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024 | Equal Citizenship for Children Act | Other General Questions

Is this information up to date?

Yes. This FAQ is updated regularly and includes discussion of both the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024 and the Equal Citizenship for Children Act.

What is the current law, and what is wrong with it?

The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (known as the “CCA”) generally controls whether or not an intercountry adoptee to the United State automatically acquires U.S. citizenship. The CCA went into effect on February 27, 2001, and it ensured automatic citizenship to intercountry adoptees who were fully and finally adopted by US citizen parents—but only if they were younger than 18 years of age at the time of the law’s effective date. That is, an intercountry adoptee who was 18 years of age or older on February 27, 2001, is excluded from current law and is not eligible for automatic U.S. citizenship under the law. Thousands may still lack U.S. citizenship today, and some intercountry adoptees may not even know they lack US citizenship. Worse, dozens of adoptees have been deported to their countries of birth, and others live in the U.S. under removal orders, subject to deportation at anytime.

What is Congress doing to fix this problem?

Congress has tried to fix this by introducing the Adoptee Citizenship Act each Congressional session since 2015. The Act, however, has never passed nor has it received a hearing. The Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024 is the latest bill, introduced in the 118th Congress on June 4, 2024.

A different bill—the Equal Citizenship for Children Act (ECCA)—is also active in the House of Representatives and would fix citizenship issues for many intercountry adopted people plus hundreds of thousands of others in the United States. Both bills are very different and address different populations and issues.

Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024

What is the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024?

The Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024—sometimes called ACA or ACA2024 for short—are bills in the U.S. 118th Congress, introduced on June 4, 2024. The current bill, like identical bills before it, will amend U.S. immigration law to repeal a loophole that has operated to deny U.S. citizenship to thousands of intercountry adoptees who were adopted by U.S. citizen parents decades ago. While many people presume that children adopted by U.S. citizen parents receive automatic U.S. citizenship when they are adopted, this is not true for all intercountry adoptees. Many are now adults and still do not have U.S. citizenship through their adoptive parents.

How does the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024 address current citizenship issues?

ACA2024, as introduced, would provide automatic citizenship to intercountry adoptees no matter their current age, provided that they also meet the core requirements of the bill. The provisions in the ACA2024 that effectively eliminate the current age requirement states that automatic citizenship would apply to intercountry adoptees “regardless of the date on which the adoption was finalized.” Other issues, however, may still prevent acquisition of US citizenship for some adoptees.

What are the core requirements for US citizenship under the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024?

The ACA2024 sets out a few core requirements for intercountry adoptees to acquire US citizenship, no matter their current age. Prior to the age of 18, however, the adoptee must have been:

• adopted by a United States citizen;
• lawfully admitted to the United States;
• physically present in the United States in the legal custody of the US citizen parent.

In addition, the adopted person must have never previously obtained US citizenship, and must also be residing in the United States at the time the ACA2024 is enacted.

Will the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024 resolve all of the issues intercountry adoptees have with securing U.S. citizenship?

No. Even if Congress enacts the current version of the bill, some adoptees may not benefit from it. This includes:

• Individuals who were not fully and finally adopted, either in their country of origin or in the United States. In other words, the individual’s adoptive parents never legally finalized the adoption. This could happen to adoptees who entered the United States on IR-4 visas but were not subsequently adopted in the United States.
• Individuals who have been deported. The path to US citizenship for deported adoptees have additional requirements, discussed below.

How does the bill address adoptees who have already been deported?

Under the current language of the bill, intercountry adoptees who had previously been removed from the United States (i.e., deported) have a path to return to the United States to secure citizenship. Returning to the U.S. under the bill will require applying for and being issued an immigrant visa. While prior criminal convictions often prevent a previously deported person from immigrating again to the United States, the ACA2024 will exclude intercountry adoptees from such restrictions. Nevertheless, to obtain a visa to return to the United States, a previously deported adoptee must:

• undergo a criminal background check;
• “resolve” any prior criminal activity that may be disclosed in the criminal background check. What the bill means by “resolve” is not clear but it would likely involve discretion on the part of US officials to determine the appropriateness of issuing a visa for a previously deported adoptee.

If the deported intercountry adoptee obtains a visa and enters the United States on that visa, he or she would become a U.S. citizen upon admission to the country, at least under the current version of ACA2024.

Hold on. Intercountry adoptees have been deported? How did that happen?

Though the exact number of intercountry adoptees who have been deported from the United States is not known, it is thought to be between thirty-five and fifty. Generally, adoptees have been deported because: 1) their parents never secured U.S. citizenship for them and thus they did not have the benefits and privileges of that citizenship; and 2) they committed a crime that led to their deportation.

I’m an intercountry adoptee without citizenship in the United States, and I also have a criminal record. Will my criminal record prevent me from becoming a citizen under the ACA?

No, it will not prevent you from acquiring automatic citizenship under the current version of ACA2024. So long as you meet the core requirements prior to age 18 you will acquire citizenship automatically. Assuming ACA2024 is enacted, you would only need to apply for a Certificate of Citizenship or a US passport to prove that citizenship. Application for a Certificate of Citizenship does not take into account a person’s prior criminal history.

I have represented a number of intercountry adoptees who have criminal records but already acquired citizenship under current law. A criminal record has no bearing on securing a Certificate of Citizenship.

I’m an intercountry adoptee and I came to the country on a visitor/humanitarian visa when I was a child. Will this bill help me?

Generally, and without knowing more specific information about the entry into the US and other circumstances of the adoption, the answer will depend on the final text in the bill. Basically, it’s what lawyers often say when they don’t know: it depends. I interpret the bill to apply to any intercountry adoptee who was lawfully admitted to the United States, even with non-immigrant visas, such as humanitarian or visitor visas. But it’s still an open question.

Equal Citizenship for Children Act

What is the Equal Citizenship for Children Act and what does it do?

Introduced in 2023 by Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY-09) and Rep. Alma Adams (NC-12), the Equal Citizenship for Children Act would amend current US immigration law so that those who were or are under 18 years of age and residing in the United States in the legal custody of a US citizen parent (whether adoptive or biological children) would automatically acquire US citizenship, retroactive to those born after 12:00pm EST on January 9, 1941. The person, while under the age of 18, must also have been residing in the United States as a legal permanent resident (i.e., possessed a green card) or had a “pending application to adjust status to lawful permanent resident.”

The key provision in the ECCA for intercountry adoptees is retroactivity, which would assure US citizenship for intercountry adoptees so long as they had met the requirements of the Act while under the age of 18. Presumably, this would include previously deported adoptees (though this may be complicated). It would not, however, apply to intercountry adoptees or others who arrived in the United States on a non-immigrant visa (e.g., a tourist/visitor visa) and who did not obtain a green card while under the age of 18. The act also dispenses with a requirement of physical custody of the child with their US citizen parent(s), and clarifies the definition of a child to include 1) “the nonmarital child of a legal custodian citizen father” and 2) the child of a US citizen parent if the parent-child relationship is recognized under US or foreign parentage laws.

What’s the status of the Equal Citizenship for Children Act?

It is currently only in the House, where it has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee. No Senate companion bill has been introduced. The ECCA has dozens of sponsors and co-sponsors in the House, all of whom are Democrats. The text of the bill is here, and an unofficial redlined version is here (for ease of determining how the text in US immigration law will change).

I’m an intercountry adoptee who has been deported. Will ECCA help me?

Probably. The ECCA would apply retroactively to 1941 and provides that:

This section, as amended by the Equal Citizenship for Children Act of 2023 shall be applied to persons born after noon (Eastern Standard Time), January 9, 1941, as though this section, as amended, had been in effect on the date of their birth . . . .

If applied retroactively to 1941 and also applied as though the act was in place after that date, this should make previously deported intercountry adoptees US citizens, so long as they meet the ECCA’s core requirements before age 18 (adoption, custody of parents, legal permanent residence). The practicalities of applying and qualifying for citizenship, however, may be complicated.

General Questions

I have a dumb question that I’m afraid to ask. Who are intercountry adoptees and how many live in the United States?

An intercountry adopted person (or adoptee) is a person who is born in one country and legally adopted by a citizen or citizens of another country. Some people also use the term transnational adoptee. Within the intercountry adoptee community, there may be many other terms of self-identification, including transracial, transcultural, and country-specific identifiers. FWIW, since the mid-1950s, considered the beginning of sustained intercountry adoption to the United States, hundreds of thousands of children have come to the United States as intercountry adoptees, with more than 200,000 children arriving in the United States in the last twenty years.

Are intercountry adoptees considered immigrants?

Yes. Under United States law, intercountry adoptees are treated as immigrants for citizenship purposes and must “immigrate” to the United States by entering the country with an immigrant visa. Those visas, which relate to adoption, are known by the following visa codes: IR-3, IH-3, IR-4, and IH-4 visas. The most common visas today are IR-3/IH-3, and IR-4/IH-4, and adoptions from many years ago may have been assigned a visa category that is no longer in use. The prefix IH in the visa codes refers to the fact that the adoption was under the auspices of the Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (usually called “the Hague Convention” in the context of adoption).

What’s the difference between an IR-3 and an IR-4 visa?

The difference is generally where the adoption occurs. An IR-3 visa generally means that the person has been adopted fully and finally in the adoptee’s country of origin. That is, a judgment or decree of adoption was issued by a court or tribunal in the country where the child was born. An IR-4 means that there was no full and final adoption in the country of origin and that the child immigrated to the United States “for the purpose of adoption.” With IR-4 visas, the prospective adoptive parent or parents are generally appointed as the child’s legal guardian until the adoption is finalized in the United States.

Unfortunately, some prospective adoptive parents never finalize the adoption in the United States and the child does not acquire citizenship. They remain permanent legal residents and cannot vote, cannot obtain certain benefits, and are subject to deportation or removal from the country if they commit a removable offense. Once an adult, the only option to become a citizen is to naturalize, provided that they have the documentation and do not have anything on their record that would prevent securing citizenship. Even today, intercountry adoptee children admitted on an IR-4 visa and who have not yet been adopted in a state court, may become an adult without acquiring U.S. citizenship. They would then need to naturalize.

Is anyone monitoring IR-4 visas to make sure the child’s adoption is finalized in the United States?

No. I am not aware of any formal oversight by the U.S. government, adoption agencies, or state child welfare departments in monitoring IR-4 visas to assure that the child who immigrates to the U.S. is ultimately adopted in a state court, nor are there current laws in place to compel a parent (who is not yet legally the adoptive parent) to finalize the adoption. Since 2002, more than 50,000 children have entered the United States on IR-4/IH-4 visas, and it is unknown how many of them have ultimately been adopted in state court.

The use of IR-4 immigrant visas “for the purpose of adoption” does not assure the child will ever be adopted. The use of such visas—in conjunction with the failure to finalize the adoption—will likely remain a loophole in current law even if the ACA is enacted. It also has significant legal and social ramifications, such as:

• illegal or unregulated “rehoming” of children. In addition to increasing the chances of a non-citizen child being trafficked, when a child is “rehomed” or placed illegally or informally with another family, the child essentially loses the ability gain automatic citizenship through adoption. The child, as an adult, will likely face problems with citizenship status later in life and could be subject to deportation, something that would not be possible had the child’s adoption been finalized.
• legal exemptions that relate to voting and false claims of citizenship. Normally, if a person who is not a US citizen votes or obtains a benefit through a false claim of U.S. citizenship, that person can be denied U.S. citizenship later. A specific exemption exists, however, for people who reasonably believe they were citizens when they voted or claimed U.S. citizenship. This exemption applies only if they are the children of US citizens, whether natural born or adoptive children. Such an exemption may not apply if the adoption was never finalized, though there are arguments to get around this.

I’m not sure I am a U.S. citizen. How do I find out?

Knowing you are a citizen and proving you are a citizen are two different things. Let’s take the second one, which is fairly easy to explain: proof of citizenship. There are generally four documents you can use to prove U.S. citizenship:

1. A government-issued certificate of birth showing you were born in the United States;
2. A U.S. passport;
3. A Certificate of Naturalization;
4. A Certificate of Citizenship.

If you have one of these documents, then you have proof (and also knowledge) that you are a U.S. citizen.

If you do not have any of these documents and do not even have a copy of one, then you will need to determine what documents exist to help prove citizenship. To do that you will need to either find one of these documents or find the documents you need through a request to the Department of State or the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). My suggestion would be to contact an attorney to help. Solutions may be as easy as making a request for your records to the USCIS, but the solution could be far more complicated if you discover issues or documentation problems with your adoption or arrival to the U.S.