Judge grants asylum to woman adopted by a US veteran from Iran after deportation threats

Federal immigration judge grants asylum to man Woman orphaned in Iran in the 1970s and was adopted by an American war veteran who immigration officials earlier this year threatened with deportation to the immigrant’s home country. USA is currently at war.

Judge Andrew Fishkin’s ruling will likely end the months-long ordeal of a California woman who was one of thousands of people adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of bureaucratic loopholes between adoption and immigration law.

The woman has lived in the United States since she was adopted by American parents as a young child and has no criminal record. The Associated Press is not naming him because it fears his legal case will remain weak now that it is time for the administration to appeal. A federal judge allowed her to use the pseudonym “Ms. S” while appealing the government’s decision on her immigration status.

The woman received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security in February ordering her to attend deportation proceedings, stating that she was eligible for deportation because she had overstayed her visa in March 1974, when she was 4 years old.

The 56-year-old woman described what happened next as a terrifying and humiliating few months.

He grew up in a Christian, military family on a farm in Wisconsin and was taught to be a patriot. But the documents he received from the government described him as a “foreigner”; some said he did not understand English, the only language he spoke.

Immigration officials told him he was arrested but released and was being monitored with an ankle monitor. He bought new trousers to hide and taught himself not to cross his legs during business meetings; He feared it would threaten his corporate health care business, which he had held for nearly two decades.

They took his fingerprints and took his DNA. He said he was clearly crying in the mugshot taken of him.

He prepared himself for detention: He put his bills on automatic payment and gave his friends the keys to his house.

His attorney, Emily Howe, said the government has the authority to recognize him as an American citizen.

“Instead they treated him like a terrorist, like he was the worst of the worst criminals,” Howe said. he said. “It felt very Big Brother-ish, very Orwellian.”

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on records related to an individual case.

Associated Press He profiled the woman in 2024 As part of a story about how many international adoptees are denied citizenship because their American adoptive parents fail to naturalize them.

The woman’s parents lived in Iran, where her father worked for a U.S. government contractor in the 1970s. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was held as a prisoner of war in Germany for years during World War II.

The couple found the toddler in an orphanage and returned with him to the United States in 1973, finalizing the adoption soon after. At that time, parents had to naturalize adopted children separately. The woman’s parents have since died.

He didn’t learn he wasn’t naturalized until he applied for a passport at age 38. He still doesn’t know how the surveillance happened. He searched his father’s papers and found a 1975 letter from a lawyer who said he was working with immigration officials, said “this matter is closed” and billed his father for his services.

He filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month seeking to bar the government from removing him from office and force the government to grant him citizenship.

He has long believed he should be considered a U.S. citizen: He has a Social Security card, a driver’s license, and has been allowed to work and pay taxes legally for decades. The only person who denies that he is a citizen is the immigration office. He suspects his papers were probably lost during the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran by militants.

Fishkin seemed to agree: In his decision, he wrote that the documents from the embassy were not available to either him or the U.S. government. He declared the woman a refugee with the right to work in the United States. His decision puts women on the path to recognition as citizens.

He said he was hopeful when he learned of the court date before Fishkin was scheduled for his late father’s birthday. He always felt that he had to protect not only himself but also his father’s legacy. He said he was a conscientious military officer and would not knowingly allow such conspicuous surveillance to leave his daughter in legal limbo.