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Even as the U.S. moves to tighten border controls and regulate immigration in a way that provides greater benefits and fewer costs to current American citizens, lawmakers should look to address ways that the current system is too arbitrary and draconian. This is one: Children who came here legally and were formally adopted by American citizens should automatically become American citizens. The New York Times reportson the tragic saga of a Korean adoptee who committed suicide after being deported from the U.S.:

Phillip Clay was adopted at 8 into an American family in Philadelphia.

Twenty-nine years later, in 2012, after numerous arrests and a struggle with drug addiction, he was deported back to his birth country,South Korea. He could not speak the local language, did not know a single person and did not receive appropriate care for mental health problems, which included bipolar disorder and alcohol and substance abuse.

On May 21, Mr. Clay ended his life, jumping from the 14th floor of an apartment building north of Seoul. He was 42.

As theTimesnotes, a 2000 law grants automatic citizenship to youngsters adopted into American families after its passage. That law should be amended to apply retroactively.

Liberals and conservatives hold a range of positions on the way the U.S. immigration system should handle so-called Dreamerspeople whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally as children. But while opponents of citizenship for Dreamers can point to the perverse incentives involved in legalizing children of illegal immigrants, there is no such case here. Parents who adopt children into their homes have done nothing wrong; their selflessness should be encouraged.

There are many thorny questions in immigration policy. This is not one of them. Congress should address it soon.

Read the original here:
Immigration Reform Should Fix This - The American Interest