Updated on 30.08.24 at 13:14
Mike Davis sat in front of a blank wall in an apartment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“In 1978, we moved to Augusta, Georgia, bought our house and lived there,” he said. “I went to school there. Glen Hills High. I was on the tennis team, the soccer team.”
Davis was adopted by an American military officer from Ethiopia, whom he met at the age of 8. He was given a military ID and later a driver's license.
“I never thought I would have to apply for citizenship,” he said. “We thought I was already a U.S. citizen. Even my father thought I was a U.S. citizen through adoption.”
Davis is one of tens of thousands of adults in the United States who did not automatically receive American citizenship through adoption. He was deported to his native Ethiopia nearly 20 years ago.
Congress is now trying to close the legal loophole that has left many adult adoptees in limbo.
Meredyth Yoon, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said the organization has met many people who did not know they were not citizens until they were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She is one of many activists across the country pushing for legislation to close this loophole.
“Before the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, it was more difficult for children adopted by their U.S. parents to obtain citizenship,” Yoon said. At that time, there was a separate process to obtain citizenship in addition to adoption.
“In many cases it was because the parents didn't know or maybe didn't get around to it. Often this step wasn't taken,” she said.
In this 2000 law, Congress corrected the separate adoption and citizenship procedures for minors and prospective adoptees, but did not retroactively grant citizenship to adoptees who were adults in 2000.
Nick Greene is an adopted son living in California who advocates for citizenship for all adoptees with Adoptees For Justice and the Alliance for Adoptee Citizenship. He said sometimes people don't realize they aren't citizens until they try to apply for welfare or Medicare. Under the Child Citizenship Act, adoptees born before Feb. 27, 1983, cannot obtain citizenship through their parents, who are also citizens.
“So these are people in their 40s, 50s and 60s,” he said. “They grew up as Americans. They've lived as Americans for over 60 years. Some of them have been fighting this fight for a decade.”
Congress is currently considering two bills that would retroactively grant American citizenship to adoptees who did not automatically receive it when they entered the United States. The bill also allows people who were deported, like Mike Davis, to return to the United States.
Where he would be reunited with his family.
Brothers Adam Davis (left) and Broderick Godbee (right) pose for a photo at Godbee's Car Wash in Augusta, Georgia. They haven't seen their father, Mike Davis, in nearly 20 years after he was deported due to a loophole in adoption law. (Matthew Pearson / WABE)
Davis' wife, three sons and five grandchildren live in the U.S., and almost all of them still live in Augusta. Broderick, his eldest, owns a successful car wash and said he learned how to be a businessman from his father.
Mike owned a pizza place on Broad Street in downtown Augusta. He grew his business, bought a home, and started a family of his own.
“I've built my life. I've started a family,” he said. “We're already being separated from our biological parents and we're dealing with it. It's not easy.”
Davis was facing deportation after a run-in with police in 1993. He was charged with simple possession of marijuana and cocaine and spent three months in a boot camp, followed by three years on probation. When he finished, his probation officer told him that immigration authorities were considering deporting him.
In July 2003, Immigration and Customs Enforcement came to Davis' home in the middle of the night. His wife and two youngest sons were asleep at the time. Immigration and Customs Enforcement held him for two years while they completed his deportation. He has lived in Ethiopia ever since.
Adam Davis shows a photo of himself, his father and older brother posing on a mountaintop in Ethiopia. (Matthew Pearson / WABE)
Adam, his youngest son, pointed to a picture of two beaming little boys cradled in their father's arms. After his father was deported, his mother tried to bring the two youngest boys to Addis Ababa so the family could be together.
“My mother bought a one-way ticket there,” he said. “We had no plans to come back.”
But they came back without their father.
Since then, Mike has had a difficult time in Addis Ababa. He had no family or community there. Work is hard to find and now, at 61, he is also struggling with some health problems.
“I have five grandchildren that I haven't met yet,” he said. “I'm dying to meet them. They send me some videos, but they're growing up. They're adults now.”
In the meantime, Yoon of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta is working with Davis to bring him back to Augusta. She said there are between 50,000 and 75,000 noncitizen adult adoptees nationwide, not counting those already deported.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to add California adoptee Nick Greene's affiliation with Adoptees For Justice and Alliance for Adoptee Citizenship.
