Adopted by US citizen am I a citizen?

J

jsumalabe

Registered Users (C)
I was born in the Philippines in 1977. I have a Permanent Resident Alien card.

My Biological parents are Filipino. My birth mom and dad were not married and split up before I was born.

My Adoptive dad is a US Citizen from birth and was in the US Navy, met my mom while stationed in the PI. I was 1yrs old. They ended up getting married in the PI's.

We all moved to the US. They ended up getting a divorce and I stayed with my dad, he adopted me in 1987 mom never became a citizen.

I grew up assuming I was not a US citizen because I had a PRA. After doing some research on getting my Citizenship I read a little bit about adopted children automatically becoming US Citizens but I am not clear or understand the requirements that need to be met or if I meet them.

Any info or advice would greatly be appriciated thanx! Oh let me know if I need to post any other info that would help.
 
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Under the old rules (i.e. before Feb. 2001 when the Child Citizenship Act took effect), both parents had to be US citizens for the child to derive US citizenship ... but if the child ended up living with one parent who has full custody, due to the other parent separating, divorcing, or dying, only the one custodial parent needed to have US citizenship. So you might be a US citizen, depending on what additional adoption-related conditions were applicable back then (under current rules, the adoption must have taken place before age 16).

What is a PRA? A green card?
 
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Yeah I was adopted at 10yrs old so I think I meet the requirements.

Is there a way to find out? besides filling a $500 form out requesting a certificate?
 
If you don't want to go ahead and apply for the certificate, you could consult a lawyer to look at your evidence and figure out whether you qualify, but that could cost you nearly $500 and the lawyer's answer would still not be definitive.

You could apply for a US passport, which is cheap, but from what I've read it seems the passport authorities don't do such a good job (compared to USCIS) with some of the complex cases, and yours has multiple factors complicating it -- old rules, you're already past 18, only one parent is a citizen, adoption, etc. And if they reject you for the passport, that will make it even more difficult for you, with them having said you're not a citizen (even if you rightfully should be).

However, upon further research it seems you do not meet all the requirements. Remember when I mentioned possible additional rules surrounding adoption, before the 2001 law? Apparently there are such rules (in addition to the age limit), if the page quoted below is right. Your adoptive parent would have had to apply for your citizenship before you turned 18; it was not automatic under the old rules.

http://www.hooyou.com/adoption/citizenship.html
3. The general rule for adopted children to become U.S. citizens if not qualified under CCA

For the adopted child whose parent(s) is a U.S. citizen: After the adoption is completed and the child has entered the United States as a permanent resident, the adoptive parent may apply for citizenship on behalf of the child by filing Form N-643. This must be done before the child is 18 years old in order for the child to become a U.S. citizen. If the naturalization process is not completed before the child's 18th birthday, the child will have to apply for naturalization on his own behalf.

For the adopted child whose parent(s) is a U.S. permanent resident:
If the adopted child is unmarried and under 18 and his parent(s) is a U.S. permanent resident, he can be included in the naturalization petition of his alien parent(s) as a derivative beneficiary by filing Form N-400. He must also be a permanent resident and reside in the U.S. before his eighteenth birthday.

For adopted children over 18:
If the adopted child is 18 years or older, he must apply for naturalization independently and meet eligibility requirements that currently exist for adult lawful permanent residents.
Click to expand...
 
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USCIS has a strange way of handling these cases. Some people apply for naturalization through N-400 to be denied because USCIS deems they are citizens (however, no certificate of citizenship is issued, which is my complain). However, applying for N-600 to be denied, and then N-400 is also costly. I think that for these complicated cases people should apply N-400 and if USCIS thinks they are actually citizens they should issue a certificate of citizenship right there and then.
 
Yeah, Thats what I figured. Better do it the right way to avoid any future headaches.

Thanks everyone for your input helped me out alot.
 
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