We urge you to:
(1) Submit or present live testimony, email letters of support or call members of the committee and urge them to vote Do Pass and move the measure to a floor vote.
(2) Ask friends and family in Massachusetts to contact the committee. The more legislators hear from constituents, the greater the chance of success.
Below is the Action Alert distributed by Access Massachusetts with details on the bill and testimony information.
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On March 4, 2021, Washington Representative Adam Smith and Utah Representative John Curtis introduced the bipartisan HR1593 Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021 to provide U.S. citizenship to international adoptees who were brought to the U.S. as children but never granted citizenship. The following members of Congress have co-sponsored this legislation in the past. Let’s get them on board again!
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The once clean HB 2070 has been gutted and corrupted. It no longer addresses the rights and needs of Arizona-born adoptees. The bill has is now
(1) prospective-only starting in 2022
(2) specifically bars the vast majority of the state’s adoptees–those adopted between 1968-2021– from obtaining the state-held record of their births that belongs to them.
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The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee has scheduled a hearing for SB 331 on January 26, 2021.
SB 331 is a non-restricted, non-conditional bill to restore the right of all Maryland -born adoptees at the age of 18 or older to receive a copy of their Original Birth Certificate upon request. It is sponsored by Senator Susan Lee. A companion House bill should be introduced shortly.
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This means that no-one will be able to access their personal records from the Minister’s archive, or information in his archive about their disappeared relatives or babies who are buried in unmarked graves.
All of the administrative files, which show how the abusive system of forced family separation was run, will also be withheld.
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Big news! We’ve hit a key milestone with the Adoptee Citizenship Act and we need YOU to speak up for citizenship for ALL adoptees. Join us for a Virtual Rally on Twitter this Wednesday to demand that lawmakers pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act, H.R. 2731, and ensure citizenship for ALL adoptees.
On Wednesday, September 23rd, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration & Citizenship will discuss and listen to evidence regarding “Immigrants as Essential Workers During COVID-19.” During this time, a statement by Adoptees for Justice will be submitted to the Subcommittee. If the statement is accepted, H.R. 2731 will move onto markup, the next step in the legislative process.
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The bill needs to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
We urge you to:
1) Write, e-mail or call members of the Senate and urge them to bring the bill to the floor and to vote DO PASS!
2) Ask friends and family in Massachusetts to contact the Senate. The more legislators hear from constituents, the greater the chance of success!
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Ancestry.com has announced that it plans in August to purge its smaller matches –6-8cM- segments. In other words, ancestry.com DNA customers are about to lose a substantial number of family members/DNA connections from its customer’s DNA matches.
In general, this is a terrible idea, but specifically, these smaller matches are the exact place where African American and mixed Native Americans find their ancestral connections. This change will also affect adoptee connections.
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The Kentucky Legislature has been closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is scheduled to re-open (as of this writing) on April 14, 2020. We don’t know if that will happen, but now …
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Not only were adoptees and their rights trivialized, but their hope of equal treatment under law, due process, and right to “personal records” (words from the bill) were played with. HB345 is no only bad politics, but cruel politics. Due to HB 345, real people, with real faces, real names, real families, real records, and real hopes were hung out to dry apparently to get “something passed” at the end of the session that legislators didn’t even care enough about to discuss in public. The outcome of HB345 suggests that the purpose of records access is personal reunion rather than political rights. The result will be the increased use of “outing” mechanisms such as social media and online DNA tests, which often involve public exposure of the names and other private information of adoptee and birthparents, rather than the quiet release of a state-held document to adoptees.
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Bastard Nation is a proud partner organization in the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with the Adoptee Rights Law Center and the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records
Bastard Nation is a proud partner in the Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with Equality for Adoption, Gladney Adoptees for Rights and Equality, and the Adoptee Rights Law Center. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records