Korean Adoptee Went through US Foster Care Faces Deportation UPDATED

“More than three decades ago, a 3-year-old South Korean boy and his sister flew to the U.S. to become the adopted children of American citizens, but their life together didn’t last long.

They were abandoned by their American parents, sent into foster care and separated.

A family adopted the girl, and got her citizenship. The boy, who was eventually named Adam Crapser, wasn’t as fortunate: The parents he had were abusive, and never sought the green card or citizenship for him that they should have.

Now, at 39, after struggling with joblessness because of his lack of immigration papers, homelessness and crime, Crapser, a married father of three, is facing deportation because he’s not a citizen.

“The state abandoned him when he was a child,” his attorney, Lori Walls, said. “Now the U.S. is throwing him out.”

A deportation hearing is set for April 2.

Federal immigration officials say they became aware of Crapser after he applied to renew his green card two years ago: his criminal convictions, ranging from burglary to assault, made him potentially deportable under immigration law.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t aware of Crapser’s childhood adoption history when it decided to pursue his deportation, agency spokesman Andrew Munoz said.

U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, are proposing a stand-alone, automatic citizenship bill for adoptees like Crapser.

“It was not his responsibility to fill out that immigration paperwork,” Merkley said. “He knows no other country.”

Advocates say thousands of adoptees don’t know they aren’t citizens until they try to get a job, register to vote or apply for a passport.

The federal government does not track the citizenship status of international adoptees or how many have faced deportation. The State Department says it is aware of adult adoptees who are in immigration removal proceedings.

Adoptees who didn’t become citizens are lawful permanent residents — but they lack the documents to prove it. Their stories about deportation to countries as diverse as India, Russia or Brazil are detailed on advocacy websites.

Since the 1950s, American couples have adopted nearly half a million children from other countries; about 100,000 of those children came from South Korea. For years, it was the parents’ responsibility to seek citizenship, but many did not.

In 2000, lawmakers made citizenship automatic for international adoptees, but the law wasn’t retroactive. It excluded adoptees 18 or older at the time. Crapser wouldn’t have met the criteria.

Many of them remained stuck in legal limbo. A provision that would make citizenship automatic for all international adoptees regardless of age was added to a Senate immigration bill several years ago.

But when reform stalled, the provision did, too.

Seven years after Crapser and his sister were adopted, their parents abandoned them. The foster care system separated Crapser, 10 at the time, from his sister, whom he was dependent on, according to orphanage records.

The boy bounced through several foster and group homes. When Crapser was 12, he moved in with Thomas and Dolly Crapser, their biological son, two other adoptees and several foster children.

The next four years, Adam Crapser said, the couple choked, kicked and hit him and the other children every day, slammed them against walls, set dogs to attack them and burned them with hot objects.

“Everything I did was wrong,” he said. “As far as humiliation goes, I have been there.”

His father also used racial epithets to address him and forced him to forget Korea.

“He always told me I’m American, and that I need to let go of my past,” Adam Crapser said.

In 1991, the couple was arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They denied the charges. Thomas Crapser’s sentence included 90 days in jail, and his wife’s three years of probation.

Because students at his high school teased him about the abuse, Adam Crapser said he dropped out of 9th grade.

He became homeless and slept in a shelter or the back of an old car while working several fast food jobs and finishing his high school equivalency diploma at night.

The Crapsers had not obtained U.S. citizenship papers for him.

Over the next few years, Adam Crapser struggled alone, and also got into trouble with the law.

Once it was after he broke into his parents’ home — it was, he said, to retrieve the Korean Bible and rubber shoes that came with him from the orphanage — and later it was for stealing cars and assaulting a roommate.

Because he lacked a green card to prove he could work in the U.S., he opened a barber shop and an upholstery business — something he could do without immigration papers.

He said his parents withheld his adoption record for years, so it wasn’t until 2012 that Adam Crapser submitted a green card application — which set in motion his path to a deportation hearing.

Adam Crapser said he takes full responsibility for his crimes, but he has “done his time” and changed his life.

“America promised me a home,” he wrote in his court declaration. “I implore this country to keep its promise. If not for me then for my children, so they won’t have to grow up without a dad.

South Korean adoptee who had abusive parents, went through US foster care faces deportation[The Republic 4/1/15 by Associated Press/GOSIA WOZNIACKA]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“A South Korean man who was adopted by an American family when he was three years old is expected to be deported after immigration judge John O’Dell ruled against relief that would have allowed him to remain in the US.

The Adoptee Rights Campaign said Adam Crapser’s adoptive parents never applied for naturalisation. He is one of an estimated 35,000 international adoptees who do not hold US citizenship and could be deported for a number of minor crimes.

According to Associated Press, seven years after Crapser and his older sister were adopted, their adoptive parents abandoned them. Crapser, 10 at the time, was separated from his sister by the foster care system and was housed in various foster and group homes.

Two years later, he was taken in by Thomas and Dolly Crapser. The couple had a biological son, two other adoptees and several foster children, NBC News reported. Crapser says he was physically abused by the couple and in 1991, they were arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual abuse and rape.

The couple denied the charges. Thomas was sentenced to 90 days in jail, while his wife was sentenced to three years of probation.

In 2014, federal immigration officials got to know of Crapser as he attempted to renew his permanent resident card. His criminal convictions, which included burglary and assault, made him potentially eligible for deportation.

“Adam and his family are heartbroken at the outcome,” Lori Walls of the Washington Immigration Defense Group told NBC News. “He was eligible for a discretionary form of relief called ‘cancellation of removal’, and the immigration judge decided he did not deserve this relief,” Walls, who is representing Crapser, said.

She added that Crapser is “desperate to be out of detention and waived appeal”. He is presently at an immigration detention centre in Tacoma, Washington and is set to be deported as soon as arrangements are made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBS News reported.

“While I am disappointed in the judge’s ruling and worried about my family’s future, I hope that what has happened to me will further demonstrate the importance of passing the Adoptee Citizenship Act,” said the father-of-three.

According to NBC News, the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015 is being considered by the Senate under S2275 and the House of Representatives under HR5454. If the bill is passed, it would close a loophole in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, which grants automatic US citizenship to children adopted by US citizens. The law does not apply to those adoptees who were already 18 years old when the law was passed.

Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, told CBS News that arrangements were being made for Crapser to get documents to fly him back to his country of birth.”

Man adopted by US couple as a child to be deported to South Korea after 37 years[International Business Times 10/27/16 by Nicole Rojas]

Update 2: Adam Crapser WAS deported!

“A man who was adopted from South Korea by Americans when he was just three years old has been deported back to his native country.

Adam Crapser, 41, landed in South Korea on Thursday after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered him to be deported because of criminal convictions, including assault and being a felon in possession of a weapon.

His life story highlights the failings of an adoption system that put him in the homes of one set of parents who abandoned him and another that physically abused him and other adopted children, according to his Seattle attorney, Lori Walls.

ICE spokeswoman Rose Richeson confirmed Crapser arrived in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday morning aboard a commercial airline flight escorted by deportation officers.

Richeson said Crapser was arrested by ICE on February 8 after serving a 60-day sentence for menacing constituting domestic violence and attempted coercion. He had been held in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington since then.

A judge could have allowed Crapser to stay in America but decided on deportation.

Crapser’s supporters said he waived an appeal because he couldn’t stand to stay in the detention center any longer.

His lawyer said she is astonished that the fact that Crapser ‘was adopted, abandoned and abused… carried relatively little weight in the decision that the immigration court made.’

‘The U.S. government facilitated the adoption out of Korea,’ she said. ‘No one followed up to make sure he was safe. When that first family abandoned him to foster care he was not visible – there was no follow-up.’

No one ever sought U.S. citizenship for him.

He and his older sister were adopted by a family who lived in Michigan and who later abandoned them after they moved to Oregon, Walls said.

The brother and sister were split up and Crapser was eventually adopted by parents in Oregon who assaulted him and other children in their care.

His adoptive parents were convicted of multiple crimes.

Crapser eventually left the home and was arrested after he broke in to retrieve some of his belongings from his orphanage in South Korea, Walls said. Crapser later got into further trouble with the law.

 He came under the scrutiny of federal immigration authorities after he applied for a Green Card and they saw his criminal record.

‘I had 50,000 signatures on a petition to keep me here,’ he said. ‘They didn’t look at any of it, just my criminal record,’ he told KPTV in an interview from jail last year.

‘I’m hopeful Adam figures out how to make a life in that country, where he doesn’t speak the language, read the language or know anything about the culture,’ Walls said.

His birth mother in South Korea, who had put her son and daughter up for adoption because she couldn’t afford to keep him, is learning English so she can communicate with him when they’re reunited, The New York Times reported recently.

‘His birth mother, because of publicity in South Korea, came forward,’ Walls said, adding that a DNA test proved the relationship. Walls noted that the mother is disabled, has a low income ‘and can’t be much help for him.’

‘I spoke with Adam a couple of days ago,’ Walls said. ‘He was trying to stay positive, but I mean it was clear talking to him that he was scared. He’s going to a country where he can’t even read the street signs.’

Walls said there might be legal remedies for Crapser to return to the U.S. but that it would be ‘an uphill battle.’ “

Korean-American man, 41, who was adopted from South Korea for new life in the U.S. when he was three is deported

[Daily Mail 11/17/16 by AP]