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Heartsent Fair Oaks Office: Sacramento Area
All photos on this website feature adopted children |
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The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 Below are two links to information about the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. One link is a press release from the United States Department of State dated March 5th, 2001. The other is a fact sheet put together by the United States Imigration and Naturalization Service. Please access these two links in order that you might read for yourself what these two agencies say about this act. Some things that do appear to be clear and which are pertinent to the community of adoptive parents of foreign born children are: 1) The children must be residing in the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident. This appears to be an important statement for the parents of the children who, because of the type of Immigrant Visa which was issued (IR-4), must readopt in the United States to satisfy the terms of the Visa. Until the readopt is completed it would appear that the children are not lawful permanent residents. There is some confusion about this, even within the INS, The information on the links to the State Department and the INS indicate that proof of permanent resident status would be a permanent resident "green" card. The INS has been issuing these even to the children with the IR4 visas. The INS is not sure what they are going to do about this, but they are thinking it over. It is our recommendation that parents whose children have the IR-4 Visa (where only one parent was able to travel) finish the readoption as the INS has instructed . 2)Even though a child is considered a United States Citizen, no certificate of citizenship will be issued unless an application is made to INS . Therefore, unless the parents submit an application for citizenship (as they had to do before this act was passed) they will not have proof of citizenship which the certificate provides. Editorial thoughts Some parents have said that because the procedure for obtaining the Certificate of Citizenship will remain the same, at least for now, that no real change has been made by this law. That is not the case, however. This should not be seen as a paperwork reduction act for the adopting parents. This is a protection for the children whose parents do not apply for their citizenship. Prior to this act a child was not a citizen unless the parent applied. Now the child is a citizen (even without the certificate of citizenship) even if the parent does not apply or if something happens to the parent before the application process is complete. |
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