SoCal woman adopted when she was an orphaned Iranian toddler faces deportation

A woman who describes her upbringing on a Midwestern farm as “wholesome” and “all-American” is now facing deportation to Iran, a country with which the U.S. has no diplomatic relations and is now at war, a country she does not even remember. 

The woman, who has asked NBC 7 to conceal her identity because of her immigration status, was adopted from Iran at the age of 3. She has lived in the U.S. for 53 years.

Her father was an Air Force officer and a prisoner of war during World War II. He worked as a defense contractor in Iran. He and his wife decided to adopt the toddler in the 1970s.

The woman, whose attorney said she has no criminal record, received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, saying she was subject to removal from the United States. It says she overstayed her visa back when she was 4 years old in the mid-1970s. 

“I do not have any memories [of Iran],” said the woman. “It just felt like a really foreign, faraway place and dangerous.” 

The adoptee was aware of a discrepancy over her citizenship status, which she discovered in 2008, at nearly 40 years old, when she went to obtain a passport. 

She was legally adopted, her birth certificate names her U.S. citizen parents, has a Real ID and a Social Security number, yet when she went to get her passport, she learned she lacked proof of citizenship. 

“I just kept asking through my tears: ‘I don’t understand how this could happen. I’m adopted. How?’ It doesn’t make sense to me,” said the woman. 

At the time she was brought to the U.S., the adoption process was distinct from the process of becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, which adoptive parents had to undertake separately. She believes her late father was under the impression she had been naturalized and that this is a mere clerical error, perhaps because she was adopted in the days before digitization. 

“I’m struggling and fighting so hard to keep this life in America that I deserve,” she said. “And, like I said, he made sacrifices to this country, and it’s such a betrayal to my dad and to myself to send me back to a country I was orphaned in.”

Congress passed a law in 2000 to grant citizenship to people legally adopted from overseas, but it did not work retroactively, so it does not apply to people born before Feb. 27, 1983, like the Iranian woman fighting deportation. 

Since learning she lacks proof of citizenship, the woman said, she has done everything aboveboard within the immigration system to try to rectify the situation, but to no avail. Now, after nearly two decades of that fight, she faces deportation to a country she does not remember.

Her fears compound when considering the fact that she is a Christian and would be considered a convert in Iran, which puts her in peril. Also, her father was U.S. military, and, now that the U.S. is at war with Iran, that adds to her peril.She said she would lose the rights she is accustomed to because of her gender. She has no known family in the country.

“I just really try not to envision myself getting off of a plane,” said the woman. “Me being an American and then me being as a woman, and then my faith — I feel like all of those things would probably put me in prison or worse.”

NBC 7 asked the woman’s Congressional representative, Young Kim (R-40th) about the case. She said her office, which represents portions of Orange and Riverside counties, is familiar with the circumstances and has made inquiries on the woman’s behalf. 

“We are dealing with a very sensitive issue, and that is within the Justice Department, working closely with the State Department, and I can’t comment beyond the information that I have,” said Kim.

NBC 7 reached out to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services numerous times while working on this story, but it did not provide a comment in time for this report. 

The woman is awaiting her next court hearing later this month. She is afraid to attend in person and is wary of leaving her house, even to go grocery shopping or go to work. She lives in legal limbo, worried her home and freedom could be ripped from under her and she could wind up in a region rocked by recent violence. 

“It just, to me, it’s a broken promise to return somebody that two governments made an agreement to give an orphan a home,” she said. “And I feel stateless. Iran was not my home. I left when I was 3 years old.”