Thousands were adopted to the US but not made citizens. Decades later, they risk being deported

The United States has brought hundreds of thousands of children from abroad to be adopted by American families. But along the way it left thousands of them without citizenship, through a bureaucratic loophole that the government has been aware of for decades, and hasn’t fixed.

Some of these adoptees live in hiding, fearing that tipping off the government could prompt their removal back to the country the U.S. claimed to have rescued them from. Some have already been deported.

A bill to help them has been introduced in Congress for a decade, and is supported by a rare bipartisan coalition — from liberal immigration groups to the Southern Baptist Convention. But it hasn’t passed. Advocates blame the hyper-partisan frenzy over immigration that has stalled any effort to extend citizenship to anyone, even these adoptees who are legally the children of American parents.

They say they are terrified about what could happen if former President Donald Trump is reelected because he has promised massive immigration raids and detention camps.

Here are the findings of the AP report:

How did this happen?

The modern system of intercountry adoption emerged in the aftermath of the Korean War. American families were desperate for children because access to birth control and societal changes had caused the domestic supply of adoptable babies to plummet. Korea wanted to rid itself of mouths to feed.

Adoption agencies rushed to meet intense demand for babies in the United States. But there were few protections to ensure that parents were able to take care of them, and that they acquired citizenship.

The U.S. had wedged foreign adoptions into a system created for domestic ones. State courts give adopted children new birth certificates that list