Woman adopted by U.S. war veteran faces deportation to Iran

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A woman adopted from Iran as a toddler is facing removal proceedings after the Department of Homeland Security sent her an order to appear before an immigration judge in California, according to a letter described by the Associated Press. The AP said the department told her she is eligible for deportation because she overstayed her visa when she was 4 years old.

The Associated Press is not naming the woman because of her legal situation. The AP said the woman has no criminal record and has been living in the United States, including working in corporate health care, paying taxes, and owning a home in California.

In comments to the Associated Press, the woman said she worries deportation to Iran could be a death sentence because she is a Christian. She also said her status and family history—her father’s service in the U.S. Air Force and his work as a government contractor in Iran—make the possibility especially frightening, and she said she did not expect her case to reach the point of removal.

The AP reported that, in recent days, the already terrifying prospect of deportation was sharpened by the Trump administration’s preparation for possible military action against Iran, amid concerns over Iran’s nuclear program. DHS did not respond to a request for comment by name, but the AP quoted a DHS statement responding to the AP’s decision not to name the woman.

The AP said DHS told the publication that, when the media refuses to give names, it makes it harder to provide details that could allow verification that “the people even exist,” according to the department’s statement. The AP said it sent DHS a detailed description of the letter it received, including the stated reasons she is eligible for deportation and the date she was ordered to appear in court, March 4.

The woman’s attorney, Emily Howe, said a judge delayed the hearing to later next month and agreed the woman does not have to appear in person. The AP said her legal team sought the arrangement because they worried immigration officers could be waiting at the courthouse.

The case traces to a gap between adoption and citizenship rules, the AP reported. The woman said her parents adopted her in the early 1970s, after she was found in an Iranian orphanage, and that the family returned to the U.S. in 1973. The AP said her adoption was completed in 1975, and at that time parents had to separately naturalize children through the federal immigration agency.

The woman said she did not learn she had not been naturalized until she applied for a passport at age 38. She told the AP that she has tried for years to correct her status, saying she contacted the State Department, immigration officials, senators, and her congresswoman, Rep. Young Kim, who responded that she was “not able to advise or interfere,” the AP reported.

The Associated Press also said lawmakers in 2000 passed a bill intended to address the citizenship problem for international adoptees, but the law was not made retroactive. The bill, the AP said, applied only to children who were younger than 18 when it took effect, leaving people born before the cutoff date—Feb. 27, 1983—outside the change.

Adoption advocates said the women targeted by the older cutoff have continued to seek legislative relief. The AP reported that Hannah Daniel, director of public policy for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, described the threatened deportation of a Christian adoptee to Iran as the kind of scenario that lawmakers and groups had sought to prevent, and said it conflicts with the nation’s stated commitment to religious freedom.

Ryan Brown, chief executive officer of Open Doors, also told the AP that Iranian authorities often treat converts to Christianity from Islam as particularly suspect. The AP reported Brown said converts can face intense discrimination and that converts are often assumed to have aligned themselves with Western interests.

In her comments to the Associated Press, the woman said she believes Iran would likely view her with added suspicion because of her father’s military service and work for the U.S. government. She described reading her father’s journal from the time he was a prisoner of war and said she now feels compelled to confront what she described as an injustice that could break her family’s legacy. She told the AP, “And what’s happening to me is wrong,” and added that if her father were alive, she believes it would break his heart to learn she is on that path.