The United States has brought hundreds of thousands of children from abroad to be adopted by American families.
After several years, it however appears thousands of them have been left without citizenship, through a bureaucratic loophole that the government has been aware of for decades, and hasn’t fixed.
Some of these adoptees live in hiding, fearing that tipping off the government could prompt their removal back to the country the U.S. claimed to have rescued them from. Some have already been deported.
A bill to help them has been introduced in Congress for a decade and is supported by a rare bipartisan coalition — from liberal immigration groups to the Southern Baptist Convention. But it hasn’t passed.
Advocates blame the hyper-partisan frenzy over immigration that has stalled any effort to extend citizenship to anyone, even these adoptees who are legally the children of American parents.
They say they are terrified about what could happen if former President Donald Trump is reelected because he has promised massive immigration raids and detention camps.
