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Hello! Our family fully completed an international adoption from the country of Laos. We received an IR-3 visa in her Lao passport and went to the United States. Because the adoption was full and final we should have automatically been able to receive the certificate of citizenship.
We registered our daughter's name with our state, PA, and had her name legally changed. While we were waiting for the certificate to come, we applied for her U.S. Passport and we now have it. (We had to submit the IR-3 visa as proof of citizenship.)
The problem is now we are getting a notice from the Department of Homeland Security saying that they can't send us the Certificate of Citizenship because we work in Asia. We have to reside in the U.S. in order for her to receive the certificate. Instead of sending us the Certificate of Citizenship they sent us a Permanent Resident Card.
Why is this a problem? We have her U.S. passport and she now has a S.S. #
One detail that may help is that the name in her U.S. passport is different than the name on her IR-3 visa. As I said above, we registered the adoption with the state of PA and changed her name at the same time. We sent that court order along with her Lao passport and IR-3 visa to get her U.S. Passport.
What should we do now? It seems that there is some type of communication problem between the Department of State (Passport Office) and the USCIS. If we have her U.S. passport, isn't that proof she is a U.S. citizen? Do we need to do anything with her Permanent Resident Card?
The reason this is difficult is because we are now back overseas and can't easily contact the related offices to figure this problem out.
Thank you very much for your help with this.
The rules are different for Americans who live abroad. Technically, they can obtain automatic citizenship for their adopted children by visiting the U.S. briefly -- many overseas families go to Hawaii. However, they do not get the CoC automatically, as far as I know.
Sharon
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