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Dear Sharon,
As you say yourself given a lot of thought to the adoption/immigration process and I read your post several times as it contained a wealth of ideas/thoughts.
In summary, all that you wrote makes sense to me and you have brought up very good points. I am all hope that adoption and immigration will move along this path.
First of all, I agree with your comment that a review is needed on the current law not to extend automatic citizenship to children who had reached the age of 18 by February, 2001. Every now and then you hear about cases where these children find out that they are out of statusӔ and supposed to leave the United States. Makes no sense to me at all, how is this even possible! I am generally negatively surprised on all you wrote in your point #3 on the process of automatic citizenship, especially when I read USCIS is still having some difficulty with this lawӔ. It is hard to believe that the situation is as it is and I find it unacceptable.
The orphan definitionӔ is another point you brought up. I agree with you and I think that the current situation is an overkill. I understand and support the need to prevent scam adoptions and, as you say as well, the solution to this problem is a careful review of I-600 applications and a case-by-case consideration as needed.
About children adopted by American citizens living overseas having to travel to the U.S. to get their citizenship agree. It beats me why an American embassy cannot do the process of granting the citizenship. Another issue in the current immigration system that I find non-sensical. I cannot even come up with a possible rational reason behind it.
To allow internationally adopted children to become president makes perfect sense to me, too. Where you are born is something over which you have no control. It֒s a random draw in the lottery, you get what you get. But if you grow up in the United States and are loyal to the United States indeed, why shouldn֒t you become president?
Since I am especially familiar with permanent residency, I do think that the current legal barriers to immigration of a child adopted by LPRs (legal permanent residents) should be lifted. Personally, I would not mind if international adoptions by LPRs were more restricted than adoptions by U.S. citizens but to prohibit it altogether is an overkill (yet another one). While it DOES make sense that other non-citizens should not be allowed to adopt internationally, in the case LPRs I fail to see the prohibitive reason. International adoption by LPRs is and will not be a root cause of Americas immigration woes!
I do not think that the risk for fraudulent adoption is higher than with U.S. citizens. I think of us permanent residents as ғde facto U.S. citizens who cannot vote. (What are we not U.S. citizens, then? Possible reasons include: Because we are in the process of waiting to be naturalized, because we have to give up or native citizenship if we get naturalized etc). In any case, I agree 100% that a proper process to prevent fraudulent adoptions has to be in place and again, careful reviews of I-600s is the answer to ensure that fraudulent adoptions do not occur.
You have mentioned adoption by American Muslims and the ShariԒa laws. Having lived most of my life in Israel which is a state tied to religious laws, I am aware of how non-negotiable such laws can be on one hand but I have also seen also how conflicts between religion and a modern state have been resolved by compromises and good will. Your proposed solution to allow an exemption to the current visa requirements for a child from an Islamic country being adopted by Orthodox Muslim U.S. citizens falls into the category of good will and it makes sense to me because it addresses the humanitarian aspect.
About non-adoption immigration: I would like to see immigration REFORMED and ENFORCED. In my eyes, the root cause of America֒s immigration problem is an immigration reality which is punitive towards those the laws and lets those get away who dont.
To my sadness, I have experienced that Americans does not seem to distinguish between ғlegal and ԓillegal, leave alone the general lack of knowledge what an immigration process is and what each status means. I remember clearly an incident where I referred to myself as an ԓimmigrant and the person that I spoke with reacted as if I had suddenly become leprous, LOL ԅ
In Israel, we have an immigration absorption system in place (the Ulpan which are language classes, job training, cultural education etc.) that has proven itself and has been in place for many years. However, as you mention, that comes at a financial cost and I do not know how easy it would be to convince the public to implement such a system in the United States.
I agree that there should be efforts to help legal immigrants (its sad that we have to say ғlegal immigrants as the word ԓimmigrant should imply ԓlegal by default!) assimilate into American society and I am convinced that reformed immigration policies that are properly enforced will result in less illegal immigration.