Be a part of history
I would like to buy this t-shirt for Oscar (or Baby Etta), but there’s really no point. Given that neither of them were born on American soil, they’ll never have the right to be considered for President under current law.
While I was stuck in Viet Nam, I met a brilliant woman named McLane Layton, a former Congressional staffer and adoptive mother, who has worked tirelessly to advocate for the rights of adopted children. She is yet again attempting to gain certain basic rights for our children, including treating all adopted children of American citizens the same as a bio child of a citizen born outside of the U.S., a fundamentally fair concept and one whose time has come. I am sending the following letter to my Senators and I encourage you to consider doing the same (feel free to use any part of this you’d like in an attempt to obtain the same rights for our kids as any other American child enjoys).
Dear Senator,
I am the mother of a two-year-old boy named Oscar who I adopted from Viet Nam last year as an infant. I am currently in the process of adopting a sister for him from Ethiopia. I am writing to urge you to advocate for and support the FACE Act (S. 1359 Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act), which was introduced in the Senate in June.
When I adopted Oscar from Viet Nam, I was able to travel to meet him before his adoption was finalized by the Vietnamese ministry. This allowed me to bring him home to the United States on an IR3 visa. He became a U.S. citizen the second our plane touched down in San Francisco. Since then, I have spent months finalizing additional paperwork in the U.S. to finalize the adoption in California state court, complete a name change, and apply for a domestic birth certificate, social security number and a U.S. passport.
This time, adopting from Ethiopia, my daughter will travel home on an IR4 visa. Despite the fact that this adoption journey will likely take years to complete, it will be far from over when our plane touches down in the United States. Without automatic citizenship, I will be forced to apply for visas for her to travel to and from the U.S. I will also be unable to file my taxes (including applying for the federal adoption tax credit) until I have secured a social security number for my daughter. The adoption won’t be able to be finalized until I have had multiple post-placement home visits.
The FACE Act also guarantees internationally adopted children the same benefits all children born to Americans in this country receive. Electing Barack Obama to our nation’s highest office this past November was a seminal moment in our lives – particularly because our children will grow up assuming that anyone, of any ethnicity, can be president. However, no matter how hard my son and daughter work in school and how much they accomplish in life, neither will be able to aspire to be president of the United States. President Obama’s story is a story of the American dream realized. Please give that same American dream to each and every child who is adopted internationally by American parents.
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Do the children come home on an IR-3 or IR-4 visa?
Thank you
Hi Melanie, the type of visa depends on whether the adopting parent met the child prior to the completion of the adoption. In Viet Nam, the process allowed parents to meet the child before the ceremony where the adoption took place. Therefore, kids adopted from VN came home on IR-3 visas (automatic citizenship when they hit US soil). In Ethiopia, kids come home on IR-4 (alien status), since the adoptive parents don’t meet the child until after the adoption occurs in Ethiopian court. I’m going to try to travel prior to the court process so I can bring my daughter home on an IR-3, but obviously, that is a time consuming and far more expensive endeavor than the alternative.