Trump Tightens Policy On Overseas Adoptions

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Another tightening of immigration rules from the Trump administration, specifically US Citizenship and Immigration Services, says a small number of US military personnel and government employees serving overseas will no longer be automatically granted citizenship for children they've adopted while abroad. Bloomberg News investigative reporter Polly Moss ends has the unenviable task now of trying to make sense out of some very convol

hooded law here, Polly, welcome. They're calling this, they're they're they're calling this a policy manual update. I think this, like a lot of other stories involving Donald Trump, comes down to this question, can he do this? Well? He can, as for why he's doing it, and the confusion that's

led as a result of doing this. You know, there's a lot of murkiness there, but legally speaking, yes, this can be done, and this is really something that's in between um U, s c I S, which is the immigration authority and the federal government as far as DHS goes. But the reality is, of course he can do it, but now he has to live with sort of the backlash of that, we're saying from the military community. Okay, so walk us through this a little bit. What was

the previous policy and what is changing? So the actual thing that's changing is quite narrow. In fact, it's estimated to impact only twenty to twenty five individuals annually. And what's changing is that adopted children and existing children of folks stationed overseas or working overseas for the American government that become naturalized would now have to go through an additional application process. In the past, they would have become

citizens automatically, and now there's this extra step. So despite impacting a small group of people, you know, no one likes to do government paperwork, and it's not known for being the easiest, fastest, or cheapest process, and they will have to go through that. Yeah, do we know how expensive this this might be? Well, I think a lot of that is still up in the air. You know, we do know how expensive some of the forms involved are.

There's one form that's about six D, another form that's about But the reality is here that we still have to see exactly how this comes out, and we also have to see if there's going to be any kind of, you know, extra funding given to folks impact and given it is such a small group, perhaps that would be something that would be explored, or perhaps there would be an application process that's of a lower cost that could be explored. I think a lot of things are still

going to be determined. Given sort of how this rollout was a bit bungled, I was kind of surprised to read this in the story that throughout American history, the residency requi wiremants to pass on citizenship to children have shifted. They have. Yeah, I think just like with any immigration policy, these things will always shift. And because citizenship is not codified very harshly in the Constitution, it's not something that

we know exactly how we're going to define. It is something that's been viewed as malleable by different governments, and that's why we've seen changes like that. But we do know that if you're born to American parents, you're a citizen. Though right yes, if you are born to American parents, you are a citizen. But say if you are adopted to American parents who are living abroad stationed abroad, you know, one could argue that that child is the exact same child.

It's their child, a child that they wanted, right should That's sort of why a lot of the immigration groups are coming down on this, is that we shouldn't define somebody's legal status based on such little things. That's really some of the criticism that we're seeing. But the perception here is that this is yet another of those Paula see changes that reflects a larger push from the Trump

administration to make legal immigration more difficult. Now, what U s c i s Has said is that they're basically working to uniform the process throughout all parts of the government, to make it sort of exactly the same all throughout. But of course that's certainly the perception that comes off, especially if you look at some of the other things that have happened with veterans. Earlier this year, there were

reports of veterans being deported. There were also reports of those active service members who are currently serving having to go through lengthier and more complicated ways to become naturalized citizens. So I think when you look at it in the context of that, there's certainly an argument to be made that this is sort of the third step that we've

seen with this military community and the question of citizenship. Yeah, and we've we've heard the military community basically rise up and say this is a gratuitous slap at military members. Do we know if Congress plans to weigh in on this at all? Well, according to some of our colleagues on their in d C, Congress is a little bit confused,

and quite frankly, I can't blame them. It is incredibly confusing our colleagues and I we attempted to make sense of this throughout four hours talking to nearly a dozen immigration attorneys. So I can't blame Congress if they didn't have a big heads up on this, for not understanding it fully. I will say the Modern Military Association has asked Congress to take action, So there are advocacy groups

that are hoping that Congress will do something here. I have to admit that I've had trouble getting past the part where you said this affects twenty people, why bother? That's a good question. So they're saying this is basically a standardization. And part of the reasons of why to bother is because it does impact such a small group of people who they could theoretically kind of help along this road. Um. But then there is also the question of why bother at all? You know, it's it isn't

like something that was a very large broken system. That's certainly not the argument that was made by U. S c I S. And remind me again how this takes effect. When it takes effect, it will not take effect for some months, and it will not take effect retroactively. So folks who are already in this process are folks who obviously already have this kind of citizenship. They should not

worry about this. This is a forward looking change. And is the Trump administration responding at all to this criticism from the military community, Not thus far. But you know, we will see what happens, and we'll also see where this fits into the news cycle. If there is one very high profile case of somebody's child not being able to gain citizenship, then I think we might, you know, see more of a backlash, We might see more of

a response. Our thanks to Bloomberg News investigative reporter pollmus Ends, who will be continuing to follow this story for us. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg URDA did lad did da