Nearly 75,000 Adopted Foreign Children To Wake Up U.S. Citizens
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (News Agencies) - About 75,000 foreign children adopted by American parents will wake up U.S. citizens Tuesday thanks to a new law that automatically bestows citizenship on lawfully adopted minors.
In a statement welcoming the law, the State Department said the new statute "greatly streamlines the process by which foreign-born children of U.S. citizens can become U.S. citizens when they did not acquire citizenship at birth."
Under the Child Citizenship Act signed by former president Bill Clinton in October, minor foreign adopted children will automatically become citizens, if at least one of their parents is a U.S. citizen.
The statute applies only to those whose adoption has been finalized and who have been legally residing in the United States with their citizen parent.
The new law is aimed at remedying the situation, in which foreign-born children of American parents could become subject to deportation if they have a brush with the law.
"No one condones criminal acts," said Democratic Congressman Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, who sponsored the legislation in the House of Representatives.
"But the price these young families have paid is out of all proportion to their misdeeds," he added. "They should be treated like any other American kids."
According to Republican Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, U.S. families adopt more than 15,000 foreign-born children every year.
"They shouldn't be buried under the mountain of red tape just because they've opened their homes and their lives to these children," said Nickles, who facilitated passage of the measure in the Senate.
A ceremony celebrating the enactment of the bill is planned for Tuesday in Boston.
