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Not an adoption but an immigration nightmare. Joe Giudice of the NJ Housewives came as a baby from Italy. His parents and siblings are US citizens; he even married a US citizen but is now deported after breaking the law.
If the OP wants their child to be a citizen, they should do it ASAP before more restrictions are put in place.
I'm American and my wife is Malaysian and we both currently live in Malaysia. We are planning to adopt a Malaysian child.
We plan to raise the child in Malaysia for the foreseeable future, but we'd still like our child to get American citizenship in addition to their Malaysian citizenship.
Would our adopted child be eligible for US citizenship or would we have to have a plan to bring them back to the US first?
It seems that the government websites are a bit vague on this issue.
My advice would be to translate all child’s original documents into English by certified and licensed translator beforehand: you need to keep all properly legalized for USbirth certificate, local adoption papers, court documents, etc
Unfortunately, Malaysia is not a member of Hague Convention- you need to legalize all local docs to be legal in the US. You need some of those to file forms with the US government to get the adopted child into US, even if you prefer to live in Malaysia for a while. Do not postpone obtaining US documents- the laws may change
You could do it without lawyers, tedious and takes some time- so don’t postpone it- the laws can change.
You would need to legalize your US documents for a child in Malaysia as well as Malaysia documents for the US.
The US does not recognize double citizenship: if you do not obtain the American passport for your child- in the eyes of the the US law your adopted child is not American - with some consequences.
Some people use their second non-US passport to travel and enter the country of their birth- that precludes the US of helping them in case of trouble- the US won’t be able to help them as they considered the citizens of the country which passport they used to enter that country.
Recent crash of the plane in Iran is an example: all Canadian-Iranian citizens entered Iran using their Iranian passport- Iran does not consider them Canadians
My advice would be to translate all child’s original documents into English by certified and licensed translator beforehand: you need to keep all properly legalized for USbirth certificate, local adoption papers, court documents, etc
Unfortunately, Malaysia is not a member of Hague Convention- you need to legalize all local docs to be legal in the US. You need some of those to file forms with the US government to get the adopted child into US, even if you prefer to live in Malaysia for a while. Do not postpone obtaining US documents- the laws may change
You could do it without lawyers, tedious and takes some time- so don’t postpone it- the laws can change.
You would need to legalize your US documents for a child in Malaysia as well as Malaysia documents for the US.
The US does not recognize double citizenship: if you do not obtain the American passport for your child- in the eyes of the the US law your adopted child is not American - with some consequences.
Some people use their second non-US passport to travel and enter the country of their birth- that precludes the US of helping them in case of trouble- the US won’t be able to help them as they considered the citizens of the country which passport they used to enter that country.
Recent crash of the plane in Iran is an example: all Canadian-Iranian citizens entered Iran using their Iranian passport- Iran does not consider them Canadians
OP does not want to return to the US but stay in Malaysia with the child and go through the process there.
Give me one country which does not require citizens to leave/enter on that country's passport.
US may not officially recognize dual citizenship but it disregards it to the point you can join US Armed Forces while holding a second passport. Often it is the other country not accepting it or refusing to let a citizen return the passport. Start with Iran.
Great example. He must have known he couldn't get a USA passport, right?
I wish I could answer that. He was in the US since he was a baby. He was raised here. He probably never thought of himself as an immigrant. I would have thought that being married to a US citizen that he would have some sort of protection from being kicked out. He has 4 kids here who's lives have been ripped apart.
I personally think he's being made an example of because he's some what of a celebrity from being on the show. Teresa is in the press a lot too. I wish I knew of a similar case to know what would happen to someone not a celebrity.
If the OP wants their adopted child to be a US citizen they should do whatever needs to be done ASAP so the child doesn't have a similar issue if the OP moves back to the US. Especially with immigration laws tightening up
I wish I could answer that. He was in the US since he was a baby. He was raised here. He probably never thought of himself as an immigrant. I would have thought that being married to a US citizen that he would have some sort of protection from being kicked out. He has 4 kids here who's lives have been ripped apart.
I personally think he's being made an example of because he's some what of a celebrity from being on the show. Teresa is in the press a lot too. I wish I knew of a similar case to know what would happen to someone not a celebrity.
If the OP wants their adopted child to be a US citizen they should do whatever needs to be done ASAP so the child doesn't have a similar issue if the OP moves back to the US. Especially with immigration laws tightening up
Plenty of cases of deportation like that - parents did not follow immigration requirements. Kids did not know or did not care. Under DACA he could probably rescued the situation with a good attorney when he got married. A celebrity who never left the US thus never needed a passport?
Plenty of cases of deportation like that - parents did not follow immigration requirements. Kids did not know or did not care. Under DACA he could probably rescued the situation with a good attorney when he got married. A celebrity who never left the US thus never needed a passport?
They actually went to Italy a few times. I'm not sure what he did for a passport.
Malaysia does not allow for dual citizenship. It is possible that since the adoptee is coming the other way (Malaysian citizen later obtaining US citizenship) they may not have to know about it and it would work out. My parents renounced their Malaysian citizenship when they became US citizens, but I'm not 100% sure if that was a requirement.
Also note, many global citizens prefer not to have US citizenship. It's more complex than this, but I'd say it boils down to:
Pro - US citizenship is tier 1, allows for ease of travel in most of the world and obviously allows one to easily live in the US if that's what they want.
Con - US uses citizenship based taxation so if you do this, you will force them to pay tax to the US for the rest of their lives, no matter where they live. (There is an income exclusion and some other nuances, but overall it is a burden if they will be making good income) No other tier 1 passport carries this burden, although I certainly could see this fact changing in the future as western governments seek more ways to balance their budgets.
Malaysia does not allow for dual citizenship. It is possible that since the adoptee is coming the other way (Malaysian citizen later obtaining US citizenship) they may not have to know about it and it would work out. My parents renounced their Malaysian citizenship when they became US citizens, but I'm not 100% sure if that was a requirement.
Also note, many global citizens prefer not to have US citizenship. It's more complex than this, but I'd say it boils down to:
Pro - US citizenship is tier 1, allows for ease of travel in most of the world and obviously allows one to easily live in the US if that's what they want.
Con - US uses citizenship based taxation so if you do this, you will force them to pay tax to the US for the rest of their lives, no matter where they live. (There is an income exclusion and some other nuances, but overall it is a burden if they will be making good income) No other tier 1 passport carries this burden, although I certainly could see this fact changing in the future as western governments seek more ways to balance their budgets.
I almost forgot that I had started this thread.
Wife and I are still on a list and we've had a few close calls, but no baby yet.
Just to clarify some things here:
1. Malaysia allows dual citizenships until you are 18, then you must choose. However, Malaysian enforcement of this rule is very lax and I know of at least one person who his half Brit/half Malaysian that has kept both of her citizenships.
2. The US does not have allows against having multiple citizenships.
3. We've received some good info from a lawyer and from the embassy. The only problem is the embassy and lawyer seem to have different idea of how the process will go. Either way, if we ever get the kid (and after we get the child a birth cert with our names, a process that can take 6-12 months), we'll work our way through the US citizenship process - one thing both the lawyer and the embassy said is that it can take a few years.
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