Should There Be Dual Citizenship for Internationally Adopted Children?

My last blogs were about the boy sent back to Russia and in which jurisdiction the abandonment occurred. (You can click here if you missed last week’s update .) I learned from his adoption agency’s website that children adopted from Russia to the U.S. have dual citizenship in both countries. This was news to me. Adopting from Korea, we were advised to inform our agency when the adoption was finalized so that they could sent a request to South Korea to remove her from the Korean citizenship rolls. This was especially important because all male citizens in South Korea serve … Continue reading

An Update on the Adopted Child Sent Back to Russia

The adoption agency World Association for Children and Parents (WACAP), which handled the adoption of Artem Savaliev, also called Justin Hansen, has filed a petition Tuesday in Bedford County, Tennessee, asking the court to investigate whether his abandonment (in his case, being sent back to Russia alone on a plane) constitutes abuse or neglect. The agency said in its petition that the adoptive mother Torrey Hansen and her mother Nancy Hansen had inflicted “severe emotional injury upon this minor child who has now been abandoned twice, by his biological and adoptive parents”. (The boy’s biological mother’s rights were terminated in … Continue reading

Who Has Jurisdiction in the Abandonment of the Russian Boy?

My last blog concerned last month’s news about the adopted boy flown back to Russia alone. Some commentators have speculated whether abandonment charges would be brought in the U.S., which does allow unaccompanied minors to fly, or in Russia, where he landed. Also, the jurisdiction where the child was abandoned may be Tennessee, where the adoptive mother and grandmother reside, or possibly Washington D.C., since the child’s grandmother flew with him there and then put him on the nonstop flight to Russia alone. Children adopted from Russia to the U.S. are citizens of both Russia and the United States of … Continue reading