International Adoptees Push For Amendment To Immigration Laws

Korean adoptee Adam Crapser poses with daughter, Christal, 1, in the family’s living room in Vancouver, Wash. on March 19, 2015. Crapser, whose adoptive parents neglected to make him a U.S. citizen, will face an immigration judge and could be separated from his family and deported to South Korea, a country he does not know.
Korean adoptee Adam Crapser poses with daughter, Christal, 1, in the family's living room in Vancouver, Wash. on March 19, 2015. Crapser, whose adoptive parents neglected to make him a U.S. citizen, will face an immigration judge and could be separated from his family and deported to South Korea, a country he does not know. Gosia Wozniacka / AP Photo
Korean adoptee Adam Crapser poses with daughter, Christal, 1, in the family’s living room in Vancouver, Wash. on March 19, 2015. Crapser, whose adoptive parents neglected to make him a U.S. citizen, will face an immigration judge and could be separated from his family and deported to South Korea, a country he does not know.
Korean adoptee Adam Crapser poses with daughter, Christal, 1, in the family's living room in Vancouver, Wash. on March 19, 2015. Crapser, whose adoptive parents neglected to make him a U.S. citizen, will face an immigration judge and could be separated from his family and deported to South Korea, a country he does not know. Gosia Wozniacka / AP Photo

International Adoptees Push For Amendment To Immigration Laws

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Since the end of World War II, tens of thousands of children have been adopted into the U.S. from foreign countries. Now, some of those adult adoptees are in a precarious legal position because a loophole in US immigration law has left them without US citizenship. Some of these adoptees even risk deportation. The Adoptee Rights Campaign hopes to change that.

The campaign is a national effort to get the Adoptee Citizenship Act passed by Congress. The amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act would grant retroactive citizenship to anyone adopted internationally. We talk with campaigners Becky Belcore and Taneka Jennings and Joy Alessi. She was adopted from the South Korea when she was 7 months old but learned she was not a US citizen when she was 25.