Immigrant Adoptees Who Never Became Citizens Fear Possible Deportation

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, July 28, 2025…

• Imagine growing up in the U.S., going to high school, starting a career, having a family – only to learn that you’re not an American citizen. That’s exactly what happened to thousands of children born in other countries and adopted by American parents in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And now, with the increased immigration enforcement from the Trump administration, there’s concerns about possible deportation.
• The battle over immigration raids across much of Southern California will have another day in court Monday afternoon. The Trump administration is looking to end a temporary restraining order that’s in place, barring indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests.
• Governor Gavin Newsom says he believes California voters will support a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help Democrats in the 2026 election.

Shirley Chung was just 16 months old when an American family adopted her from South Korea in 1966. She was raised by a Black family in Texas, went to a mostly white school and attended a mostly Black church. Growing up in a mixed-race family, she became accustomed to questions about her identity. “’What are you? What are you?’ I’ve heard that my whole life,” she said. “From when I was a little girl, and my mother would have to answer the question.”

But one thing she never questioned was her identity as an American. That is, until she misplaced her Social Security card and tried to get a new one. She was 57 at the time. “When I get to the Social Security office, that’s when they told me, ‘We can’t give you your card, you need to prove your status in this country,’” she recalled. “I didn’t know what that meant.” It meant that Chung wasn’t actually an American citizen. Someone — either her adoptive parents or the adoption agency — never completed the paperwork required to establish citizenship, she said.

Advocates believe there are between 30,000 and 70,000 adoptees who never became U.S. citizens. Some have been deported to countries they have no memory of ever living in — sometimes to tragic consequences. Emily Howe is a San Diego-based lawyer trying to help Chung and others like her adjust their immigration status. “The concept of an undo***ented adoptee is so egregious and appalling,” she said. These are people who were “shipped overseas through no fault of their own” when they were babies, Howe added. Now that they are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, they’re discovering that they don’t have U.S. citizenship. Howe has consulted with adoption attorneys, immigration lawyers, family law specialists and even international law attorneys to find a solution. But she said there is no easy fix.

America’s outdated immigration laws don’t offer an easy solution — there is no form adoptees can retroactively fill out and no appeals process. Instead, immigration lawyers have to find complicated work-arounds to establish citizenship — either through marriage, children, or some kind of humanitarian or employment visa program. In 2000, Congress recognized that adoptee naturalization was an issue. They pblocked a law called the Child Citizenship Act, which streamlined the naturalization process for new adoptees. While the law helps children adopted after the year 2000, it did not provide retroactive relief to tens of thousands of people who were adopted decades earlier.

Appeals Court To Hear Arguments On Federal Government’s Immigration Raids 

An appellate hearing is scheduled Monday in the Trump administration’s bid for a stay of a temporary restraining order halting the federal government’s aggressive, month-long immigration sweeps across Southern California.