CNN Highlights Story of Korean Adoptee Expelled from the US
Abused in Adoptive Family and Abandoned Twice
"Adoption Agency and Korean Government Responsible... I Want to See My Daughter"
A Korean American man, Adam Crabcer (Shin Song-hyeok, 49), who was adopted to the United States as a child and forcibly deported after several decades, has drawn focused attention from foreign media.
On the 28th (local time), the U.S. CNN broadcast featured an interview with Crabcer in an article titled "Decades spent in a country he cannot call home: The nightmare of Korean American adoption in the U.S." Crabcer is the first Korean adoptee to file a damages lawsuit against the Korean government and adoption agencies in 2019, and he gained renewed attention following the appeal trial held at a Seoul court on the 23rd.
Adam Crabser, who was adopted to the United States as a child, was abandoned twice and then deported to Korea as an undocumented immigrant. [Image source=AP Yonhap News]
Crabcer was adopted at the age of four in March 1979, along with his two-year-older sister, through Holt Children's Services (hereafter Holt), a domestic adoption agency, to a family in Michigan, USA. However, the siblings were abused and beaten by their adoptive parents for six years before being abandoned. He was then adopted separately from his sister by another family in Oregon, where he was also abused. His second adoptive parents were arrested in 1991 for child abuse, and Crabcer was abandoned again, reportedly leading to a period of homelessness. Due to the abuse and two instances of abandonment, he was unable to apply for citizenship and lived as an undocumented immigrant. His juvenile misdemeanor record became an issue, resulting in his forced deportation to Korea in 2016, while his wife and two daughters remained in the U.S.
When Holt sent Crabcer to the U.S. for adoption, although his birth mother was alive, he was registered under the ‘Giya Register (Orphan Register)’ because his birth was not officially reported. At that time, having a Giya Register allowed proxy adoption without the adoptee and adoptive parents meeting, and the biological parents’ consent process was omitted, making the adoption procedure easier. During this process, his original name ‘Shin Seong-hyeok’ was mistakenly recorded as ‘Shin Song-hyeok,’ and he was adopted to the U.S. under that name.
Three years after arriving in Korea, in 2019, he filed a lawsuit against Holt and the state. He claimed that they only collected fees for sending him for adoption and failed to take basic measures such as confirming whether he had obtained U.S. citizenship, which led him to live as an undocumented immigrant for 37 years. In the first trial last year, he won a judgment ordering Holt to pay 100 million won in damages, but Holt insists that it fulfilled its duties as an adoption agency at the time. Crabcer also appealed, arguing that the Korean government failed to fulfill its obligation to assist and verify the acquisition of nationality for adopted children, which is fundamental in international adoption.
Crabcer told CNN, “I want to take care of my daughter and be part of her life. As a father, I want to give my daughter what I never had.” He added, “I have lived most of my life caught between two worlds. But what about my children? Should they also live without a hometown?” According to CNN, the only way for him to obtain U.S. citizenship is through the ‘2024 Adoptee Citizenship Act.’ This bill, which grants automatic citizenship to overseas adoptees, was introduced in June but remains pending in the U.S. Congress. However, Crabcer expressed skepticism to CNN, saying, “It may never be realized in our lifetime.”
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