Adam is joined by guests Joy Alessi, Dr. Diane Kunz, Dan Berger, and Emily Howe in the third and final installment of our series on the issue of Adoptees Without Citizenship. In this part, Diane and Dan walk us through a quick history of immigration in modern American history, starting in the 1950's and taking us up to the current day. They, with added context from Joy and Adam, explain how the legal framework of immigration is related to the issue of naturalization aka citizenship. In the second half, Emily discusses the important concepts of legitimization of a child, what is a family in the eyes of the law, and how the failed naturalization of adopted children should be an easy problem to fix. Finally, Joy and Adam give their closing remarks on this podcast series project.

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REFERENCED RESOURCES:

Adoptee Rights Campaign: adopteerightscampaign.org/

Adoptees For Justice: adopteesforjustice.org/

GUEST BIOGRAPHIES:

Dr. Diane Kunz - Executive Director of the Center for Adoption Policy, a preeminent legal and policy institute engaged in adoption and family creation issues. Dr. Kunz has advised U.S. government agencies on adoption related issues, and she helped author the Haitian Humanitarian Parole and the Help Haiti Act of 2010 which granted U.S. citizenship to Haitain adopted children.

Dan Berger - Partner at the immigration law firm of Curran, Berger & Kludt in Northampton, Massachusetts . Dan studied immigration history and graduated from Cornell Law School. Dan has practiced immigration law for over 20 years, and is also an adoptee.

Emily Howe - Serves on the Board of Directors of the Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego, and is the Co-Chair of the adoptee affinity network of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). She works on public interest issues and helps constituents navigate the complex legal system. Emily was adopted from South Korea.

Joy Alessi - An adoptee from South Korea, Joy discovered that she had not received U.S. citizenship during her U.S. adoption or thereafter. Since learning that thousands of international adoptees share similar legal failures, Joy has worked to educate both advocates and policymakers of the problem’s adoptees face without citizenship protection. As Executive Director of the Adoptee Rights Campaign, Joy’s work focuses on building effective resources for impacted adoptees and supporting passage of the Adoptee Citizenship legislation.

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