Adam Crapser, a South Korean who was adopted at age 3, is set to be deported to his country of birth because his adoptive parents didn’t apply for naturalization when they brought him to the United States. Crapser is now 41 years old and is a father of four who will have to leave his family to be taken to a country where he simply doesn’t belong.
Lori Walls, of the Washington Immigration Defense Group, told NBC News that Crapser, his wife, and kids were heartbroken after Immigration Judge John O’Dell ruled against relief that would allow the South Korean stay in the US. Walls said Adam was eligible for a discretionary form of relief known as “cancellation of removal,” but the judge decided he didn’t deserve such an opportunity because he has been convicted of a series of minor crimes.
The Associated Press reported that there are about 35,000 international adoptees who could be deported anytime for some small crimes because they simply don’t hold U.S. citizenship, according to the Associated Press.
Not only didn’t Adam’s adoptive parents complete his citizenship papers but they also abandoned him to the foster care system.
“They promised that they would take care of these things, and it never happened,” Adam told National Public Radio last year.
An abusive childhood
His first foster family also adopted his sister, and both children were often punished. Crapser was whipped and forced to sit in a dark basement, as The New York Times Magazine reported in 2015. Six years later, the couple abandoned Adam, and he had to go to foster homes and a boy’s home.
After two years, he was welcomed by Thomas and Dolly Crapser, a couple in Oregon who had a biological son, several foster children and two other adoptees, as reported by NBC News. Crapser has said he was physically abused by his second adoptive parents, who in 1991 were arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual assault, and rape, according to the International Business Times.
“Dolly, Crapser says, slammed the children’s heads against door frames and once hit him in the back of the head with a two-by-four after he woke her up from a nap. Thomas duct-taped the children’s mouths shut, Crapser says,” reads the report by The New York Times Magazine.
The report continues to say that Thomas even burned the boy’s hands and broke his nose because he couldn’t find his adoptive dad’s car keys. After Adam was kicked out from that house, he returned to try to steal back his possessions and was then convicted of burglary. He served jail time and committed other criminal acts after being released.
The Times reported that Crapser later succeeded at starting a new. He married and had four kids. Crapser was recently a stay-at-home father who had a hard time at finding a job because he had no U.S. citizenship.
In 2014, Adam tried to renew his permanent resident card and federal immigration officials realized he was potentially eligible for deportation because of his criminal convictions, which included burglary and assault.
Adam is currently at an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Despite his efforts to remain in the U.S. with his wife and kids, he will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement completes the required arrangements.
Source: IB Times