I recently learned about the plight of Russell Green and his fight to stay in the United States: Stop the Deportation of Russell Green.
Adopted over thirty years ago from South Korea, he currently faces possible deportation because he was never naturalized as an American citizen. He's basically in a state of statelessness, screwed over by the foster care system.
Here's a public service announcement with some more information on Russell Green case and the unjust deportation of adult adoptees:
Some more details:
He arrived in Massachusetts from Korea as a 12-year-old boy, but after only a few months, his "forever parents" returned him to the adoption agency before his adoption was finalized. Russell was then placed with a single foster parent living in Brooklyn, New York who cared for older boys and who promised to adopt him. Although this foster parent renamed Sang Keum "Russell David Green," he did not legally change Russell's name, adopt him, and facilitate his naturalization.Russell Green is father to three children born in the United States. He has never known a family in South Korea, can't speak the language, and doesn't hold citizenship there either. How does that make any sense? For further information, and to sign the online petition in support of Russell Green, go here.
Instead, he exposed Russell to alcohol, marijuana, and abuse and set him up for a lifetime of addiction, danger, and pain. The agency failed to facilitate a permanent family and home for Russell as a U.S. citizen. Through its irresponsibility, it reduced him to a condition of statelessness, which means in effect that he has lived under constant threat of deportation. Russell's ties to the U.S., which he considers his home, are deeply personal. Although not being officially adopted, he is regarded as a son by an elderly American couple who have loved and cared for him for over 20 years.
He is a father to three children who were born in New York. Russell's story could be any intercountry adoptee's story. A child is vulnerable to the neglect of the receiving country and its adoption agencies, which are bound to act in her/his best interests. As immigrants who journeyed to the U.S. to be adopted, we in the adoptee community and our allies cannot allow these unjust deportations. Children do not come to the U.S. of their own volition to be adopted. They should not be vulnerable to deportation as adults because the intercountry adoption system failed to uphold their rights when they were children.