Posted on 09/17/2005 12:26:39 PM PDT by TankerKC
This is a long read which is an update from a thread I wrote in January 2004. Please read, if you can help.
Family Adoption: Did We Do the Right Thing? (Freeper Advice Requested)
Being a Conservative goes beyond posting to FreeRepublic. Or, it should. So, when a family member got into some legal trouble and couldn’t care for her child, my wife and I stepped in.
Not the first time.
When you come from a family with six kids, chances are that one may not turn out to be a productive member of society. My mom raised six of us on her own. She now has grown children, five of whom are functioning members of society including a military officer, three cops and a homemaker (and former cop).
The sixth, and youngest, has been in and out of trouble since she was in the sixth grade—incidentally the last year she regularly attended school. She had her first child when she was 15 and her second when she was 19.
Over the years the level of trouble she got into escalated. She started with truancy, fighting, and drinking. Soon it was drugs along with prostitution to pay for it. She finally developed a heroin habit and resorted to armed robbery for funds.
She was caught and arrested during a robbery of a diner. Her two children, who had accompanied her during her heroin binges and crime sprees, were taken into state custody. Of course, with 5 aunts and uncles, the kids had a home to go to. My brother took the kids into his home. Since the kids were wards of the state, my brother was essentially taking care of the kids for the State of California—it seems that is one way to work the situation. Because he was taking care of the “state’s kids”, he was given $600 a month and Medi-Cal health insurance.
A Third Child
Meanwhile, the children’s mom was in and out of prison, rehab, and parole, finally ending up with several warrants out for her arrest and strung out on heroin yet again. In February of 2000 she gave birth to a daughter. Since she was high and wanted, she slipped across the border to Tijuana, Mexico to have the baby. She was afraid that if she gave birth in a US hospital that she would be turned in. Once the baby was born, she slipped back across the border, never documenting the birth of her new child..
She spent the next eleven months living in cheap motels and scoring drugs anyway that she could. The gig was up when she got caught shop lifting and she was off to prison again.
My brother still had her older kids and had since had a child of his own with Down’s Syndrome, so he couldn’t take another child—particularly one born hooked on heroin.
Poor Timing
My wife and I already had four children. All were of school age. I was in the second month of a 1 year deployment to Honduras and my wife worked in the cash office at a local discount store. The timing was all wrong, but when she asked our four older kids about bringing the child to live with us, the just asked how soon we could get her to Alabama.
In order to take the child, my wife would need to quit her job. Due to my deployment, she was already functioning as single parent, and now her hands would really be full. We needed the money from her job, but our new baby would need some special help.
Even though our family income was going to go down, we did not want to take money from the state to care for a family member. We could have easily let the child be a ward of the state and taken cash and health insurance. But, we didn’t think is was a state responsibility. It was a family responsibility. Besides, we’d get her on our insurance and claim her as a dependent on our taxes. It would all work out—or so we thought.
She has no Birth Certificate?
Our new baby was born under less that perfect circumstances. She was born sick, in a foreign country, to a mother who was wanted by the law. Her birth was not registered or documented in anyway. We immediately got (and paid) an adoption lawyer so that we could get legal custody and progress through the adoption process. We thought that having legal custody would streamline the process.
Nothing could make this messy process smooth. It took months just to get a custody hearing. Meanwhile we paid for her doctor visits. Once we had legal custody, we thought we could claim her on our taxes and add her to our health plan. But Mr. Bureaucracy says, “Not so fast there!”
Without a birth certificate, there will be no Social Security Number. We found this to be true no matter how many other acceptable forms of identification are listed on the SS website. How about a form from the INS attesting to her citizenship? No! Can we get a individual taxpayer id number (ITIN), you know the number that illegal aliens can get so that they can pay there taxes? No!
Without a SSN or ITIN, you can’t claim a child on your taxes.
Or, get the $600 “Bush” child tax rebate.
Or, claim your adoption credit.
Or, get your DoD adoption allowance.
Three Years (It has been 4 1/2 years now)
So, we have been trying to get some documentation for this child for nearly three years. My wife has spent hours waiting in Social Security, Internal Revenue, and INS offices only to run into road blocks at every turn. We have, called, mailed, and emailed asking for and proving information to no avail.
That was all written in Jan of 2004. You can read the original thread here.
We finally did get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) for child early in 2005!
We still couldn’t get a SSN without proof of citizenship. We sent in a Form N-600 as advised by the INS. My wife was told that the form would get us an interview with INS (now the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, or USCIS). We filled out the form and paid the fee as listed on the form. The form was eventually retuned, because, apparently, the prescribed fee listed on the form was changed and we owed even more ($240 in total). After we paid the fee (Oct 2004), we got back a form letter saying that they had received the N-600 and that we could not contact them for a minimum of one year while they processed it.
Well, we got back the form today (after 11 months) and it says, “NAME is not a legal permanent resident, and there are no petitions pending on her behalf; therefore your Application for Certificate of Citizenship is hereby denied.”
We are at a loss, and have been financially drained. No one in the federal bureaucracy can tell us what we should do next. We have a child, that we have legally adopted, but she is an illegal alien. Does that make any sense? Is there anyone out there who knows what to do?
Help. Please
Let me ask around and see what I can discover for you.
Call your local news station.
Who is your congress critter? Let's all make some noise on your behalf...
That's the same thing I was going to advise...two great minds. :-)
The local newstation with a consumer reporter might do the trick.
Talk to either Jeff Sessions or Richard Shelby. Depending on what district you are in, you could get your congressman. Bud Cramer is the rep for the Huntsville area. Since this is a federal matter, establishing citizenship, this falls under their purvue. IMO, uninformed though it is, if your sister testifies that this is her child, and that can be established through DNA testing, the government ought to recognize your daughter's citizenship no matter where she was born. I know, that is logical and we're dealing with government. Good luck and God bless you.
A child born to an American citizen in Mexico is an American citizen, as well as a Mexican citizen. I don't know why this is more complicated than providing copies of the Mexican birth certificate and the mother's birth certificate in order to establish citizenship.
I once had to ask my (democratic) congressman for assistance with the federal bureaucracy. His aide was astonded when I told him that I would not need his help if the congressman had done his job in removing the bureaucracy.
We sent letters to Shelby & Session along with Boxer & Feinstein (since she was brought into CA).
Senator Sessions responded with advice from the State Dept that said for us to take our daughter to the US Embassy in Mexico. We WILL NOT do that, because we may not be able to get her back into the US.
Senator Feinstein’s office called us and promised some help, but never called back.
I suppose we can try that route again.
Get ahold of the highest local pol you can, ask him/her to tell you who to call in either of your Senators' offices. They'll take care of it. If not, TV is always a good option but only if you've tried the pols first. INS is ALWAYS a waste of time.
Put your request in letter form, just as you have laid it out here with dates and copies of correspondence between you and whichever gov't agency.
It won't hurt if you know 'someone' who knows 'someone'.
Best wishes and God bless you for helping an innocent child.
There was no Mexican birth certificate, because my sister was wanted my the law and afraid to report the birth. She just put the baby under her shirt and drove back over the border.
It should be simple, because we have now adopted the baby, and we are both citizens.
Yes, keep her on this soil no matter what. Do you live near Huntsville or Montgomery? I think that WSFA or WAAY or a FOX TV news place might be interested in doing a human interest story. Sometimes the light of public pressure helps out. Contact the B'ham News or the Huntsville Times. My heart goes out to you. You're doing the right thing. It can't be easy.
Mike Rogers is the rep for the Auburn area. He's a republican.
Bttt
TankerKC,
clee1 said it exaqctly right. Contact your congressperson and be a pest about it. You may hate to do it but get the media in the midst of this. Congresspersons hate negative press.
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