Decades in America, No Citizenship: Why This Iranian Adoptee Faces Deportation

She was a toddler when an American war veteran found her in an Iranian orphanage in the 1970s, adopted her, and brought her to the United States. She was raised as a Christian, grew up hearing her father’s stories of surviving a German POW camp during World War II, and has lived an entirely American life for more than five decades.

Now, at 56 years old, she faces deportation to Iran—a country she has not seen since she was 2, a nation notoriously dangerous for Christians, and one now on the brink of war with the United States.

The woman, whom The Associated Press is not naming because of her legal situation, received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month ordering her to appear for removal proceedings before an immigration judge in California. She has no criminal record. The letter says she is eligible for deportation because she overstayed her visa—in March 1974, when she was 4 years old.

“I never imagined it would get to where it is today,” she said. “I always told myself that there is no way that this country could possibly send someone to their death in a country they left as an orphan. How could the United States do that?”

A Legal Limbo Thousands Share

The woman is one of thousands adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of a fracture at the intersection of adoption and immigration law. Her adoption was completed in 1975, but at that time, parents had to separately naturalize their internationally adopted children through the federal immigration agency. Hers never did.

She didn’t learn of the oversight until she applied for a passport at 38. She searched her father’s papers and found a letter from a lawyer, dated 1975, saying he was working with immigration officials and that “it appears this matter is concluded.” She still doesn’t know what went wrong.

Congress passed a bill in 2000 meant to rectify the issue, conferring automatic citizenship on everyone legally adopted from abroad—but it was not made retroactive. It applied only to those younger than 18 when it took effect. Everyone born before Feb. 27, 1983, was left out.

A Daughter of a Veteran

Her father was a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II, captured in 1943 and held until the war’s end. After retiring from the Air Force, he worked as a government contractor in Iran, where he and his wife found her in an orphanage. They returned to the US in 1973, and the local newspaper ran a full-page story about the family and their new daughter.

She grew up proud of her father’s service. When she is scared now, she looks at her favorite photo of him in uniform, medals lined up on his left shoulder, a slight smile on his face.

“I’m proud of my father’s legacy. I’m part of his legacy. And what’s happening to me is wrong,” she said. “I know that if he was here, it would break his heart.”

A Perfectly Ordinary American Life

She has no criminal record—the only interaction with law enforcement she can recall is being pulled over 20 years ago for using her phone while driving. She works in corporate health care, pays taxes, and owns a home in California.

She has not kept her situation secret. For years she has asked everyone she could think of for help: the State Department, immigration officials, senators, her congresswoman, Rep. Young Kim, a Republican from California. Kim’s office recently responded to her plea about pending removal by saying they were “not able to advise or interfere.”

“I just baffles me that it’s OK to send me to a foreign country that I could potentially die or I could get imprisoned because of a clerical error,” she said.

A Death Sentence?

The prospect of deportation to Iran has become increasingly terrifying as the Trump administration amasses the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, preparing for possible military action if nuclear talks fail.

Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors, a nonprofit that supports persecuted Christians worldwide, said converts to Christianity in Iran are viewed as enemies of the state, arrested routinely, and sometimes sentenced to death. Iranian prisons are notorious for deplorable conditions, with women particularly vulnerable to sexual assault.

“It is assumed that you are an enemy of the state,” Brown said. “There is no benefit of the doubt extended.”

The woman believes Iran would view her with even more suspicion given her father’s military service and work as a US government contractor. She does not speak Farsi. She knows nothing of Iranian customs. She has lived a fully American life.

A Bipartisan Issue, Unresolved

A bipartisan coalition—from the Southern Baptist Convention to liberal immigration groups—has lobbied Congress for years to pass legislation helping older adoptees left out of the 2000 law. Congress has not acted.

Hannah Daniel, who advocated for the issue with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and now with World Relief, called the situation “un-American and unconscionable.” She noted that threatening to send a Christian adoptee to Iran represents a collision of two issues Christians care deeply about: international adoption and global persecution of Christians.

“That is what is most troubling to me about this,” Daniel said. “We are a nation that prides itself on fighting for religious freedom both here and abroad. And it feels so antithetical to that to then say we’re going to send this person who, for me, is a sister in Christ to face a death sentence.”

A Temporary Reprieve

A judge has delayed her March 4 hearing to later next month and agreed she does not have to appear in person—a relief, as her attorney worried immigration officers would be waiting at the courthouse to take her away.

But the threat remains. And as she waits, she looks at her father’s photograph and wonders how the country he served could do this to his daughter.

The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement, criticized media for not providing names that would allow them to verify cases. The AP did not provide the woman’s name but sent detailed descriptions of her letter, the stated reasons for deportation, and her court date.

For now, she remains in the only country she has ever known, hoping that someone, somewhere, will see that sending a Christian adoptee to Iran is not enforcement—it is abandonment.

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