Adopted and brought to U.S., South Korean man to be deported
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Korean adoptee Adam Crapser, left, poses with daughters, Christal, 1, Christina, 5, and his wife, Anh Nguyen, in the family’s living room in Vancouver, Wash. After struggling with joblessness because of his lack of immigration papers, homelessness and crime, Crapser, a South Korean man who was flown to the U.S. 37 years ago and adopted by an American couple at age 3 has been ordered deported back to a country that is completely alien to him, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016.
SALEM, Ore. >> A South Korean man flown to the U.S. 37 years ago and adopted by an American couple at age 3 has been ordered deported back to a country that is completely alien to him.
“It is heartbreaking news,” said Dae Joong (DJ) Yoon, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, who had been in contact with Adam Crapser.
Crapser remains confined in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, pending his deportation.
Crapser waived an appeal during the hearing Monday because he is desperate to get out of detention, his Seattle attorney, Lori Walls, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“I’m sure he doesn’t have any idea what he can do in Korea,” Yoon said in a phone interview from his group’s offices in Annandale, Va.
Crapser’s plight mirrors those of thousands of others. Yoon’s group says an estimated 35,000 intercountry adoptees lack U. S. citizenship. It is backing legislation in Congress to address that.
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Seven years after Crapser and his older sister were adopted, their parents abandoned them. The foster care system separated Crapser when he was 10 from his sister.
He was housed at several foster and group homes. When Crapser was 12, he moved in with Thomas and Dolly Crapser, their biological son, two other adoptees and several foster children.
There, he was physically abused, Crapser has said. In 1991, the couple was arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They denied the charges. Thomas Crapser’s sentence included 90 days in jail, and Dolly Crasper’s included three years of probation.
Adam Crapser got into trouble with the law after he broke into his parents’ home — it was, he said, to retrieve the Korean Bible and rubber shoes that came with him from the orphanage — and later it was for stealing cars and assaulting a roommate.
Federal immigration officials say they became aware of Crapser after he applied for a green card. His criminal convictions made him deportable.
Becky Belcore, who was adopted at age 1 and brought to the United States from South Korea, said she was with Crapser in the courtroom, located inside the detention center. She said the facility seems worse than jail because visitors cannot touch or hug detainees and must talk to them on a telephone.
“He has been in detention for almost nine months,” Belcore said in a phone interview from her home in Chicago. “He’s been separated from his children. It is really hard for him.” Walls said Crapser is married and has four children.
Belcore said Crapser was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, the uniform for detainees, and that Immigration Judge John C. O’Dell appeared matter-of-fact as he announced his deportation verdict.
In an email, Walls said Adam was eligible for a deportation reprieve called “cancellation of removal,” but the “judge decided he did not deserve this relief.”
“He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,” Walls said. “Adam, his family, and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.”
Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman with the Executive Office for Immigration Review of the U.S. Department of Justice, said in an email that she could not provide confirmation or details of the hearing without an alien registration number for Crapser and possibly a privacy waiver. Walls said she would seek permission from Crapser later to provide that information.
Belcore said she feels lucky that her adoptive parents obtained her U.S. citizenship.
“A lot of times, parents simply didn’t know that they were supposed to do it,” she said.
“It seems so wrong and so inhumane” for Crapser to be sent to South Korea, Belcore said. “Without knowing the language and the culture, it will be so difficult to survive.”
25 responses to “Adopted and brought to U.S., South Korean man to be deported”
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This story sounds a bit remote, not to mention, idiotic in it’s verdict. The person should not be deported. Any intelligent person should realize this man is Americanized and unfortunately he is a victim of our system whether it be judicial or societal.
I feel for him and his family.
Outlaw this darn adoption scam of foreigners by dumbgood-doers. We have enough of our own children!
Mahalo and aloha to you too, Trump supporter
Allah, we don’t need any more of your children.
Thomas and Dolly Crapser (Crasper,Casper,Cresper) may or may not have been guilty of child physical abuse including rape, but it seems more oversight should have been required for any couple who adopts a child when they already care for their own biological son and possibly as many as five or more other children. The idea that any foster home is better than an institution is sometimes untrue.
This sounds very familiar. A friend of ours has an adopted brother whose parents brought him back from Germany and didn’t realize they hadn’t done all the appropriate paperwork. He recently was deported to the country of his birth not knowing any German.
wonder if hr can sue the U.S. for allowing child molesters to adopt him and his sister and then abusing them?
Under Obama’s watch. Not Trump’s. Geez
You can’t fit very much under a watch, and hardly anyone wears them any more.
You must not have an Apple Watch. Get one.
Well, maybe po’ folks don’t wear watches anymore. Lots of luxury watch brands to go around though.
He’s got anchor babies, so there must be a lot more to the story, or he wouldn’t be getting deported.
His 4 children are not anchor babies in the traditional sense as both parents of the children did not clandestinely enter the US for the sole purpose of establishing citizenship for their children. According to the article he was brought to the US legitimately by the Crespers who adopted him. His wife also appears to be a Vietnamese refugee. Anchor babies normally are associated with children of Mexican parents where the mother cross the US border specifically to give birth in the US. Rich Chinese who desire citizenship for their children also use the anchor baby methodology where the pregnant mother make a special trip to the West Coast for this purpose.
There are many illegals in this country and he’s being deported? What the hell is going on in this country? Where the hell is Hilary Clinton?
It shows how screwed up our country is.
“Hi, we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”….
An unbelievably sad situation. He was adopted by one US couple, then abandoned, then adopted again by an abusive couple. No wonder he got into trouble. I feel sorry for the guy and his family. The judge has no heart. Something is wrong with the system.
I know a man that was brought to the US from Vietnam by his US serviceman father, but the father did not obtain US citizenship for the son before the father passed away. That left him and his family on their own in the US. Fortunately, he was later able to get legal papers, but it was a struggle.
He was born to a U.S. citizen father and automatically becomes a citizen subject to his father’s acceptance. Well, there is some paperwork, etc. involved.
Wow! What a travesty. This man, Adam Casper, is definitely getting a raw deal. Yes, he got into trouble with the law, but look at how badly he was abused when he was just a young kid. He came into the US legally, unlike millions of other immigrants who are still living in the Mainland. It’s not his fault that his adoptive parents did not file his paperwork. He’s got a wife and kids now to support and the US wants to deport him because his parents didn’t do the proper paperwork? How ironic is that?
“Adam Crapser got into trouble with the law after he broke into his parents’ home — it was, he said, to retrieve the Korean Bible and rubber shoes that came with him from the orphanage”.
Retrieving a Korean Bible implies he’s able to read/speak Korean so Korea is not “completely alien” to him.
If he was an Latino, muslim or black, his chances of remaining in this country would be greatly improve.
IMHO.. illegals, regardless of ethnicity, should be deported ASAP.
He can read Korean? Really? You think his “wonderful” adoptive parents helped him keep up with his Korean roots? More likely that he just wanted to retrieve two items that were the only connection he had to the land of his birth–items that were being stolen from him by his abusive adoptive parents. There’s no reason why a completely Americanized person should be deported to a country that for all purposes is foreign to him.
Both of my parents were U.S. born citizens living abroad (a serviceman and his wife), but my birth certificate is in Italian and I can’t read it. It’s in Italian because the birth registration office was part of the local government.
on the surface, it looks odd that this situation is different than the 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. You would think there’s a uniform policy, e.g. send the 11 million illegal immigrants back or have a process to make them US citizens. Perhaps someone smart on this would know ‘why’ but it seems like we don’t have a good policy.
He shouldn’t be deported for relatively minor crimes (probation in Hawaii) as long as he serves his sentence, pays restitution and reforms himself.
If Crapser was moslem it is unlikely he would be deported and definitely he would not be in jail and would be allowed to just disappear into the woodwork.