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The Adam Crapser Story

The United States is pursuing the deportation of Adam Crapser, a now 39-year-old man who was adopted from South Korea in 1979, when he was just four years old. Adam’s adoption story is not the sort of fairy tale depicted in the movies or on television. Adam was subjected to years of physical abuse by not just one, but two sets of adoptive parents here in the United States. 

Significantly, in addition to their string of abuses, none of Adam’s “parents” bothered to finalize his naturalization process. As such, Adam never became a US citizen. Non-citizens—including international adoptees—are subject to deportation if they commit even petty crimes.

So it was with Adam. After Adam’s second set of adoptive parents threw him out at age 16 (in part because of the tension arising from physical and sexual abuse charges brought against his adoptive father), Adam made a series of what he himself readily admits were very bad choices. At age 18 he was charged with and pled guilty to first-degree burglary. His crime: he broke into his estranged parents’ home to retrieve the bible and shoes that came with him from South Korea, items his parents refused to return to him. Adam went on to commit other crimes. He is not proud of his criminal history.

Adam served his time, and has worked hard to forge a new path. He went to school. He is gainfully employed. He is married. And he has three children with a fourth on the way in May. Despite it all, Adam is trying his best to make a good life for himself and his family.

Adam’s life was thrown into a tailspin, however, when he was served with deportation papers this past January. His deportation hearing is set for April 2. If deported, Adam will be forced to leave behind everything he knows, and to move to a country where he has no family or friends, where he does not speak the language, and where he will find it difficult to support himself (much less his young family).

As a mother to a child adopted from overseas (and a lawyer myself), I have become familiar with the legal landscape surrounding this issue. The most common way internationally adopted children gain citizenship is through the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (the "CCA"). The CCA provides derivative (or automatic) citizenship to international adoptees whose parents bring them into the United States on adoption visas, so long as (1) the children were under age 18 as of February 27, 2001, (2) their adoptions are full and final under US law and (3) at least one of their adoptive parents is a US citizen. Citizenship automatically attaches when all of the prerequisites are satisfied, and does not require a full naturalization process. The CCA, however, does not apply to internationally adopted individuals who—like Adam Crapser—were older than age 18 on February 27, 2001. These adoptees could only become citizens by completing the full naturalization process.

As you can imagine, Adam is not the only person to have fallen through the cracks of the CCA. There have, in fact, been a number of high profile cases where adult adoptees were deported for petty crimes, and went on to experience tremendous (albeit unsurprising) hardships in their birth countries. This has not escaped Congress' attention. In 2013, legislators proposed an amendment to the CCA that would provide retroactive citizenship to all individuals brought to this country for the purposes of international adoption. When it was proposed, the CCA amendment was applied to the Senate’s broad immigration bill and received overwhelming support from both the House and Senate. Unfortunately, because the larger immigration bill to which it was attached failed to pass, the proposed CCA amendment is now languishing on the Hill without a new legislative sponsor. And Adam Crapser is facing deportation.

Maybe some will say that Adam has committed crimes, and deportation is the price he must pay. But I ask you, why should Adam’s punishment be so much greater than the punishment afforded to his parents’ biological children—all of whom are convicted felons but who, having been born to their parents rather than adopted, will never face the terrifying prospect of deportation? Adam Crapser did not ask to come here; two US citizens brought him here to fulfill their desire for a child. Adam’s punishment should not be compounded simply because his parents failed (among many other things) in their responsibility to complete his naturalization.

Adam’s case has again sparked a movement to amend the CCA. If his story moves you, as it does me, I would urge you to sign this petition (http://action.18mr.org/crapser/?source=twitter&referrer=cayden-mak) and/or contact your Congress person and urge him/her to support a standalone amendment to the CCA to prevent the deportation of individuals like Adam. While I��m grateful that under the current version of the CCA my son will never face the risk of deportation, I am ashamed—both as a US citizen and an adoptive parent—that Adam may face a different fate. If you would like to listen to an interview with Adam himself, you can do so at https://soundcloud.com/…/adam-crapser-gazillion-voices-radio. And if you have gotten his far, thanks for reading my VERY long post! ‪#‎Keep‬ AdamHome