Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
614-795-6819
bastards.org bastardnation3@gmail.com bastardnation@bsky.social
TO: California Senate Health Committee
FROM: Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
RE; SB313: Letter/Testimony of Support
Date: April 22, 2025
Honorable Members of the Senate Health Committee:
Bastard Nation is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC) and related documents without restriction and conditions.
We are concerned with the citizenship rights, privileges, and protections for all Americans. As an advocate for the civil rights of both domestically and internationally adopted people in the US, however, and with knowledge of the historically poor treatment adopted people are subjected legally on state and federal levels, our letter/testimony focuses the legal citizenship and identity challenges we have faced for decades. We believe that SB313 addresses at least one challenge in the State of California. We hope that this bill will encourage other states to follow California’s lead.
SB313 mandates that all birth certificates issued by the State of California for babies born on and after the effective date certify that they are US citizens by birth as per the 14th Amendment.
This is hardly a radical idea, The US Constitution makes birthright citizenship absolutely clear. The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State where the reside.”
The landmark US Supreme Court decision U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, (1898) solidified the birthright citizenship “issue,” and it has not been addressed in any serious manner since then. That is, until now with draconian rule by Executive Order that attempts to upend the US legislative and court systems.. In this case, by challenging not only the US Constitution but the citizenship and the civil rights of millions of US citizens either born and adopted in the US or adopted internationally by Americans.
As adopted people, domestic and internationally, we know that our legal rights and welfare are dependent on the tide of public opinion and the rule (and sometimes whim) of government.
In over 40 years of being an adoptee rights activist, I have witnessed the citizenship of both adoptee groups questioned and challenged by bureaucrats (petty and not so petty), law enforcement, and courts due to lack of what “officials” perceive as “genuine” documentary evidence of citizenship and identity.
Here are citizenship challenges we face now:
For US-born adoptees this challenge is usually due to amended birth certificates (ABC) issued and certified by states after an adoption is ordered and the OBC seized and sealed by the state. The ABC legally changes the original identity of the adoptee and their parents and for some older adoptees the date and place of birth. This is particularly problematic for adoptees with ABCs filed 30 day or longer after birth, older persons adopted later in life, and those adopted by stepparents or through the foster care system. As a result officials can arbitrarily consider a state issued and certified ABC to be “unsatisfactory.” Passports, Social Security benefits, and security clearances (among others) are routinely denied with demands that an OBC be presented even though state law—(including California’s) prohibits adoptees from easily or ever) obtaining it. Court appeals are time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes denied. Even states that legalize access to the OBC stamp on the that it cannot be used for identification purposes.
International adoptees face even bigger. Dangers. The Citizenship Act 2000 of granted citizenship to those adopted cross-country after February27 1983. Those adopted before that are not protected. At least 40,000 of these older adoptees, despite what they were led to believe their entire lives, are not US citizens and are subject currently to ICE interrogations street-grabs, and deportations because adoptive parents, adoption agencies and lawyers, and state and federal agencies did not follow-through for any number of reasons with naturalization procedures at the time of adoption. Immigration courts have little wiggle-room to deny deportation orders. There is a long list of adoptees deported under previous administrations, including veterans and those with US-citizen spouses and children. There there is no reason to believe that these deportations won’t be ramped up by the current administration. The irony of this is that at these adoptions were encouraged by US foreign policy and through the assistance of the US State Department. To make matters worse, attempts to create citizenship procedures for older adoptees are routinely in the US House and Congress and ignored
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I have presented this outline of the citizenship problems adopted people experience now and in the past. Past problems are not trivial, since we know from experience they can return, especially in the political climate of racism, xenophobia, and disregard for the Constitution and our rights.
Obviously, SB313 cannot be retroactive and cannot address current adoptee identity and citizenship injustices in California—domestic or international– much less those problems faced by the non-adopted caught in this dystopian web. But the bill can be part of a remedy for the future.
It is truly absurd that SB313 even has be to introduced in order to codify the 14th Amendment into state law for everyone born in California in the future. Birthright citizenship has been a given for 158 years—but times call for a it. Passage of SB 313 is an initial sensible step to acknowledge and codify birthright citizenship for all persons born in California. In the future. Please vote DO PASS on SB131.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
