Despite being adopted at almost four years old by American parents, a court ruled that Adam Crapser is not a US citizen
Thirty-seven years after being adopted to the US, Adam Crapser is being deported to South Korea, his birth country a place he knows very little about, where he doesnt speak the language, and to a culture he has had little to no exposure to.
When he lands in Seoul, Crapser, 41, will be able to write his name in Korean and recite the Korean alphabet. With only that, he will need to fill out documents to become an official Korean citizen, open a Korean bank account, get a job to support himself, and money to secure the expensive deposit for an apartment rental.
But first, I will try to find a place to stay and rent a room, he said on Tuesday, in a phone interview from the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, where hes been held for nearly nine months.
On Monday, Crapsers two-year-long immigration case came to an end when, in a courtroom located in the detention center, Judge John C ODell denied Crapsers plea to cancel his deportation removal and Crapser waived his right to appeal. He could be deported as early as three weeks from now. But in the meantime, the Korean consulate in Seattle must issue him travel documents, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has to arrange his flight out of the US.
His ordeal began in January 2015 with a knock on his door. Two Department of Homeland Security officers told him he was facing deportation charges because, despite being adopted at almost four years old by American parents, he was not a US citizen.
Before 2001, foreign-born adoptees such as Crapser werent granted automatic citizenship, instead entering the US on foreign-born adoption visas. Last November, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced the Adoptee Citizenship Act, which would grant retroactive citizenship to all foreign-born adoptees. Then in June, a companion bill was introduced in the House, but there has been no movement in Congress since.
His first adoptive parents, a strict couple, relinquished custody to the state of Oregons foster care system in 1985, when he was around 10 years old, after deciding they didnt want him any more. After bouncing around foster homes, he was adopted into the Crapser family. Those parents were eventually arrested in 1991, charged with 34 counts of rape, sexual abuse and criminal mistreatment, including extreme physical assault. They were eventually found guilty of 12 of those charges. Adam Crapser was 17 at the time.
Most people dont understand that I didnt ask to come here [US], he said about his adoption. I got placed with some idiots but I went on to live my life the best I could.
He sighed: It obviously wasnt good enough.
A troubled childhood then became a troubled adulthood, but things had settled down by the time the immigration authorities knocked on his door in 2015. He was living in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife and two young daughters, a third on the way.
Crapser had filed for a green card in 2012, trying to finally do what his adoptive parents had never gotten around to doing. But a standard background check in the application flagged his criminal record.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/28/us-immigration-adam-crapser-south-korea-deportation