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Well, explain to me how allowing non-citizens to bring more non-citizens into this country will BENEFIT the United States?
Please explain to me how granting citizenship to every baby that is born in the United States BENEFITS the United States? Granting U.S. citizenship is obviously not based on benefiting hence your question is not relevant.
Notwithstanding, the United States would BENEFIT greatly if they ENFORCED the immigration laws but, as we know the laws are not REALLY enforced (that's why "immigrant" became a synonym to "illegal immigrant"). The government looks the other way when it comes to illegal immigrants, however the legal immigrants are treated overly strict - maybe to balance out the equation?
And again, would Israel & Switzerland (countries you are a citizen of) allow me, a non-citizen living on a work visa, to bring other non-citizens into their countries in order to adopt?
Not "in order to adopt" (makes no sense to me, LOL!) but in Switzerland it is legal.
In Switzerland, the Swiss Civil code states that
at least ONE of the parents must be a Swiss citizen in order to bring an internationally adopted child into Switzerland.
Not quite. Switzerland has signed and follows the Hague agreement. I have read the "ANAG Weisungen" by the Bundesamt fuer Migration which explain the rules. You can read it on
[url]http://www.djs.tg.ch/documents/Auszug_Weisungen_BFM_betreffend_Adoptiv_und_Pflegekinder.pdf[/url]
Paragraph 541.2 deals with adoption by foreigners. They differentiate between children adopted from countries which have signed the Hague agreement and countries which have not. In both case, the regulation is to treat the adoptive child as a biological child.
In the first case (541.21), since the adoptive child is to be treated as a biological child, the child gets the immigration status of the parents. In the second case, (541.22), they condition the acknowledgement of the adoption if the local Kanton police can verify that the child has been adopted legally by cooperating with the sending country.
Even if Switzerland does not acknowledge the adoption, it says in the document that the child is entitled to special visas so they have thought of those cases as well.
Israel is a special case because it is defined a Jewish state, i.e. there is no separation between religion and state. The reason why international adoption was an issue was because was because the foreign babies are not Jewish. I would not take Israel as a valid example because in the United States religion and state are separate.
Again, why should the US bend over backwards to appease a handful of legal immigrants who want the benefits of citizenship without becoming a citizen?
First of all, let me re-iterate that all we are saying is the LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENTS (so-called LPRs or green card holders) should be able to adopt internationally.
Indeed, we permanent residents are only a "handful of legal immigrants". True, it's not a widespread phenomenon - we talk about allowing or not allowing at most ~2000 foreign born babies to be adopted by permanent residents per year (my raw estimate). I fail to see a massive immigration of "non-beneficial individuals" and why define internationally adopted babies/children "non-beneficial individuals" in the first place?!
Anyway, about the "who want the benefits of citizenship without becoming a citizen"?
I was almost rolling on the floor! As serious as the subject is and as much as the ignorance and lack of empathy around it annoys me, that argument was just too funny.
So why then are we permanent residents not citizens? It's not that we do not want the citizenship - we'd love to!!! But we have to wait five years until we can finally get it!!! As for me, I am counting the days ... two years to go ... arrghhh ... oh please grant me citizenship tomorrow, I'll take it! We would LOVE to adopt in the meantime instead of having to wait in limbo for five years!
I'll conclude by providing some information on the rights and duties of permanent residents. You can read more on [url]http://legalassistance.law.af.mil/content/legal_assistance/cp/rights__responsibilites_as_a_lpr.pdf[/url]
but the salient points are:
1. We have the right to work and live here and are entitled to social benefits. (Of course, we must pay taxes like everybody else, LOL).
2. We can request a visa for our spouse and unmarried children.
3. We can apply for citizenship after 5 years.
4. Males between the age of 18-26 have to register for the US armed forces.
5. We can leave the United States and return under restricted conditions.
6. We cannot vote.
7. We cannot adopt internationally (that's not explicitly written anywhere but is implicitly implied by the U.S. immigration laws).
I really hope to make things clearer and bring the topic to the awareness it deserves.
As for me, I had the dream to adopt a child from a poor country since I was about six years old. My wish to adopt comes out of a heartfelt desire to change a child's future and I have always felt that this was something I was called to do. I had three biological children and later adopted a beautiful boy domestically. But my vision to adopt a child from an orphanage in a poor country has not changed and the feeling of an unfulfilled duty has remained. It is hard to explain how intense the sense of having a vocation of this kind can be but this is the cause behind my actions.