75,000 Adopted Kids Become U.S. Citizens

Feb. 27 -- Four-year-old Emily Maness has spent nearlyall her life with her adoptive family in Massachusetts. But in theeyes of the U.S. government, she's still a South Korean.

Her parents, Donna and Andrew Maness, brought her home from thetown of Kyungsangbuk-Do in 1997, then waited a year for theImmigration and Naturalization Service to schedule an interview forcitizenship. The couple from Falmouth canceled the interviewbecause of a family funeral, then completed paperwork toreschedule.

But another year has passed and they've had no response.

Now they won't need an answer. That's because Emily andyounger brother Jack are among an estimated 75,000 adopted childrenacross the country who will become citizens simply by waking up.

The Child Citizenship Act, passed by Congress last year, grantsautomatic citizenship to most adopted children born abroad,provided they are under 18 and at least one parent or legalguardian is a U.S. citizen. There are about 20,000 such adoptionsevery year and the average wait for INS citizenship processing hasbeen two years.

The new law removes a bureaucratic and psychological hurdle forparents who may well have waited years and paid up to $25,000 forinternational adoptions.

"It's the best thing that could have happened to people in ourposition," Mrs. Maness said. "The whole adoption process isfilled with obstacles. We justify ourselves over and over again. Weget FBI checks, state and local checks. We reveal everything aboutourselves to government agencies."

And that's before the INS application, which seeks similarpaperwork on parents and kids, including birth and marriagecertificates, photo identifications, alien registration cards andcertified English translations of documents written in otherlanguages.

A Personal Interest

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., wrote the new law fromexperience. He has an adopted daughter, Kara, 26, who became acitizen several years after leaving Vietnam as a baby.