from       -- a national newsletter for China-adoptive families p................published since February, 1995

Citizenship for Internationally Adopted Children

The following article, edited for the website, is from China Connection (April/May, 2001).

(Editor's update: The immigration services of the former INS are now the responsibility of USCIS, Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the U. S. Dept. of Homeland Security.) Child Citizenship Act of 2000 Takes Effect -- from April/May, 2001, issue of China Conection The "Child Citizenship Act of 2000" became effective on Tuesday, February 27, 2001, immediately conferring U.S. citizenship upon 75,000 foreign-born children in the U.S., according to State Department estimate. The new law streamlines the process by which foreign-born children of U.S. citizen parents can become U.S. citizens when they did not acquire citizenship at birth. The law, which applies to both adopted and biological children of U.S. citizens, amended Section 320 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide U.S. citizenship when certain conditions have been met. Specifically, these conditions are: 1. One parent is a U.S. citizen by birth or through naturalization; 2. The child is under the age of 18; 3. The child is residing in the United States as a lawful permanent resident alien and is in the legal and physical custody of the U.S. citizen parent; and 4. If the child is adopted, the adoption must be final. A child who meets these conditions becomes a U.S. citizen at the moment of touching U.S. soil--and the same conditions appliy also to the many thousands adopted in the past. Children who have not yet fulfilled these conditions will acquire U.S. citizenship on the date all of these criteria have been met, provided the child is still under 18 at the time. A child who enters the U.S. under an IR-3 visa is a citizen upon entering the U.S, but the child entering under an IR-4 visa must be readopted (or otherwise satisfy the INS that all state requirements for "final" adoption have been met for the state of residence) to obtain citizenship. A child receives an IR-4 visa when only one spouse travels. When a couple travels to adopt, or when an unmarried parent adopts, the child receives an IR-3 visa. (The child's visa type will be found in her/his Chinese passport on the page marked by the INS entry officer.) Under the previous law, parents of internationally adopted children had to apply to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for a Certificate of Citizenship in order to set in motion the actual granting of citizenship, technically involving an "adjudication" of the child's case. This process typically took from a few months to more than a year. The law also provides automatic conferral of U.S. citizenship upon foreign-born biological children of U.S. citizen parents, though it does not change the legal requirements for transmission of citizenship.

Related matter:
	Getting a document to prove citizenship: 1) Certificate of Citizenship (from USCIS) -----OR 2) passport (from State Department) Download application form and information from appropriate agency, using links here.

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