Adam Crapser has become something of a cause celebre for what critics say is a flawed United States law that unfairly leaves tens of thousands of international adoptees in limbo without citizenship. <\/p>\n
Eight years after he was deported from the US \u2013 his home for decades \u2013 Crapser was in a Seoul courtroom on Wednesday, suing for restitution on what he called a flawed adoption process that has made a shambles of his life. <\/p>\n
As a bill in Congress that could bring the 49-year-old back to the US waits in committee, Crapser\u2019s case puts a spotlight on an international adoption system loophole \u2013 one that has torn some families apart. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to be with her. I wanted to raise her. I wanted to be in her life. I wanted to be her father. I wanted to do everything that I could to give her a life that I didn\u2019t have,\u201d Crapser said. \u201cI want her to know definitively that since all of this started \u2014 before she was born \u2014 that I have been fighting this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Crapser was adopted by a Michigan family in 1979 and lived in the US for 37 years. His American family and guardians, however, failed to secure the paperwork for his citizenship and he was deported after a lengthy legal battle in 2016. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stuck. I\u2019ve been in between like this for a significant amount of time,\u201d Crapser said of his desire to return to his family and the uncertainty of his future. <\/p>\n
Crapser made history as the first Korean adoptee to sue the South Korean government and his adoption agency for damages in 2019. <\/p>\n
As he awaits a court decision in Seoul, a bill that could grant him US citizenship remains stalled in Congress. <\/p>\n
The proposed bill, the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2024, aims to grant automatic citizenship to international adoptees and rectify the loophole in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, which excluded those who were 18 or older at the time the law was enacted. <\/p>\n
Crapser, who was 25 when the law was passed, did not gain US citizenship. <\/p>\n
Crapser remains skeptical about the passage of the new bill, pointing out that it \u201cprobably\u201d may not happen \u201cin our lifetimes,\u201d based on the lack of progress since discussions of the recently introduced legislation began in 2017. <\/em> <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, said, \u201cWhile it\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ll see more movement in the rest of the 118th Congress\u201d \u2014 which ends in January 2025 \u2014 \u201cgiven the election and the lame-duck period we\u2019re expecting, we are hopeful that this very necessary bill progresses in future Congresses to become law.\u201d <\/p>\n The bill has been referred to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees for review. <\/p>\n After being abandoned by his initial adoptive parents in the 1980s, Crapser moved between foster homes and care facilities, according to a 2023 court case in the Seoul Central District Court. <\/p>\n In 1989, he was adopted by another couple, who were prosecuted in 1991 for charges of physical abuse and assault against foster and adopted children and found guilty in 1992. <\/p>\n Around 2012, when Crapser applied for the renewal of his expired permanent residency \u2013 commonly known as a \u201cgreen card\u201d \u2013 his criminal record, including charges of burglary and assault, drew the attention of US immigration officials, according to the court case. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been said a lot that I made a lot of mistakes and I got into a lot of trouble in the United States, and I admit that,\u201d Crapser said during testimony Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. \u201cI survived the best that I could in the United States, without a family and without any Korean people around me.\u201d <\/p>\n The criminal record was deemed a violation of his green card status, and in 2016 he lost his fight against deportation back to South Korea, where he was born \u2014 but a place where he didn\u2019t know the language or customs. <\/p>\n Having grown up with no exposure to Koreans, he says he grapples with a sense of disconnect from the place he is expected to call home. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have any choice,\u201d Crapser said. \u201cAll I know is American culture. I didn\u2019t know anything about Korean customs, cultures, rules, history, or anything because it was intentionally kept from me.\u201d <\/p>\n Despite his 10-year-ban on returning to the US, he said he\u2019s pursued legal avenues to be with his children. He has not seen his 10-year-old daughter since 2017. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve literally tried every single legal remedy to try and get back to the United States earlier so I could be in my child\u2019s life, and that has not been successful,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Crapser can file for waivers in two years, he says, but remains uncertain about how long that legislative process will take. Attempting to return to the US beforehand could result in a lifetime ban. <\/p>\n \u201cI want to make sure that there\u2019s a historical record, not only for my children, but also for the history of adoption that this has to do with other countries where they failed to ensure the children receive naturalization in the receiving countries,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n In response to recent media reports about adoptions from South Korea in the 1980s, Holt International acknowledged the potential unethical practices in a public statement and noted Holt Children\u2019s Services separated from Holt International in 1977. <\/p>\n \u201cThese reports highlight serious concerns, and we do not take these concerns lightly or dismiss the fact that mistakes were likely made,\u201d Holt said in the statement. <\/p>\n Last year, a lower Korean court ruled that Holt must pay Crapser 100 million won ($72,300) in damages for not informing his US adoptive parents about the steps required to secure his citizenship following the completion of his adoption in a US state court, according to the lawsuit. <\/p>\n However, the Seoul Central District Court rejected Crapser\u2019s additional claims against Holt and cleared the government of liability. Both Crapser and Holt filed appeals, with Holt asserting that it bore no legal obligation to ensure Crapser obtained his citizenship, the AP reported. <\/p>\n An attorney for the government stated that officials at that time had no legal obligation to confirm the citizenship status of adoptees and found no clear reason to question the accuracy of Crapser\u2019s paperwork, according to the AP. <\/p>\n The Seoul High Court is set to render its decision on January 8 regarding Crapser\u2019s seeking of monetary damages. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adam Crapser has become something of a cause celebre for what critics say is a flawed United States law that unfairly leaves tens of thousands of international adoptees in limbo without citizenship. Eight years after he was deported from the US \u2013 his home for decades \u2013 Crapser was in a Seoul courtroom on Wednesday, suing for restitution on what <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} A gap in citizenship<\/h2>\n
Anguish over his family separation<\/h2>\n