Pound Pup Legacy

On January 6, 2025, Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-01) announced the re-introduction of his Adoption Information Act. According to a press release, this act “…would require family planning services to provide information on nearby adoption centers to anyone receiving their services. A family planning services’s eligibility to receive federal grants or contracts through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be contingent upon providing this information.”

An adoptee, Congressman Wittman also shared his perspective about adoption:

“A lot of people say they would not be where they are today without their parents—for me, that is the absolute truth….When I was eight months old, my mom and dad adopted me. My birth mother’s decision to choose adoption gave me more opportunities than she felt she could provide, and my parents’ decision to adopt instilled in me a passion for public service and a desire to give back. That’s why I’m proud to reintroduce my Adoption Information Act so that all mothers know what options are available to them. This legislation is a simple step that can make a world of a difference.”

In addition to being a constituent of Congressman Wittman, I’m also an adoptee who believes the Adoption Information Act would cause more harm than good.

Countries: United States of America

Fraud in international adoptions turns children into commodities

Countless internationally adopted children uncover the lies surrounding their adoption
The investigation reveals the lucrative business and the crimes hidden behind these adoptions

Since the 1950s, more than a million children around the world have been adopted by Western families. The investigation carried out by one of those adoptees, now a journalist, reveals in the documentary The Adoption Scandal how this colossal and lucrative market has been able to flourish and why it still exists today. From children stolen from their mothers during the Pinochet dictatorship to false orphans from Africa or Asia , international adoption is at the centre of an unprecedented scandal .

Korean children in Sweden

The children adopted by Western families in recent decades are now between 30 and 40 years old . Interested in finding their identity and, thanks to social networks, many of them were shocked to learn that a large majority had been illegally separated from their biological parents.

Historians and demographers estimate that more than a million children have been adopted over the past six decades . South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Chile and Ethiopia are just some of the hundred countries that have given their children up for adoption to Western parents over the years.

Countries: Sweden, South Korea

Video EXCLUSIVE. The heartbreaking story of Lucian, a "little one" abandoned at birth and adopted by a Belgian family: "The pain I felt then, I want to forget"

The authorities in our country wanted to forget about the fate of children adopted abroad in the early 1990s. They assumed that they would all lead a fulfilled life, without the deprivations and traumas of Romanian orphanages at that time. When the children grew up and began to search for their roots, physical and psychological abuse, unhappiness and destinies broken by lovelessness came to light. Lucian was 7 years old when he was adopted by a Belgian family. His life was a torment and he sued the Romanian state for trafficking in minors and crimes against humanity. A new disturbing episode in the "Written in DNA" campaign.

"Directly in the chest, assassinated on command". The moment when the two clans clashed in the middle of the street, in Urziceni. Two young men from the Catană clan, shot dead

Lucian is "a little boy", born into an absurd world in 1984. He was abandoned at birth and ended up in an orphanage in Mangalia. He vaguely remembers the gray and tormented days, but immediately after the Revolution, it seemed that everything would change. The visits of families from abroad who wanted to adopt children from the orphanages brought hope to the little ones' souls. The first vacation with those who would become his parents seemed almost a dream.

Countries: Belgium, Romania

Kairi Shepherd breaks her silence, issues statement

Washington DC – India America Today on Wednesday received a statement from Kairi Abha Shepherd, an Indian-born American resident, adopted into an American family as an infant in 1982 and now facing likely deportation back to India after a recent court ruling upheld the US federal government’s right to remove her from the country. In her statement she denied she was in hiding or was trying to avoid the law and enforcement agencies of the US. She repeatedly thanked Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

The statement in full is:

“My name is Kairi Shepherd and I am making this statement to say “Thank You” to all the wonderful people around the world who have taken my part and are attempting to block my deportation from the United States to India.

I especially want to thank the kind souls in India who are working tirelessly on my behalf and, in particular, the men and women in the Ministry of External Affairs who reportedly may deny the issuance of travel documents, thus preventing my forced departure from America. Their hearts must be filled with compassion and I truly appreciate their efforts as these efforts, quite literally, may save my life.

As many of you know by now, I was orphaned at birth in my birth country, India, and then, orphaned once again, when my adopting mother, after bringing me to America, died when I was very young. Since then, I have become ill with Multiple Sclerosis and have suffered from other debilitating diseases. The deportation order which may force me to part from my physicians, family, and friends here, could be a death sentence to me. But just when I felt most abandoned by the world and life, people from around the globe and all walks of life, have seen my plight and rallied to my defense. Again, I am so grateful.

Countries: United States of America, India

Some US Adoptees Fear Stricter Immigration Policies, Mass Deportations

Thousands of Adoptees in US Still Lack Citizenship

The Trump administration’s focus on deporting immigrants has left many intercountry adoptees increasingly vulnerable. Brought to the United States by adoptive parents who, for various reasons, failed to secure their legal status or naturalized citizenship, these individuals now face the threat of deportation from the only home they have come to know.

For decades, intercountry adoptions approved by courts and government agencies did not automatically guarantee US citizenship. Not until the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 were intercountry adoptees granted automatic citizenship, but it only applied to adoptees younger than 18 as well as future adoptions when it took effect in 2001. It excluded those who arrived before February 27, 1983, as well as those brought to the United States on tourist or medical visas, a route that might have seemed fast and simple to some adoptive parents, but that has left their adopted children without legal status once those visas expired.

Many in the non-citizen adoptee community fear the impact of President Donald Trump’s talk about mass deportations and stricter immigrations policies, such as the executive order aimed at “removing promptly all aliens who enter or remain in violation of federal law.” Some of these adoptees have uncertain legal status due to visa overstays. Others, while legally in the US, remain subject to deportation if they have a criminal history, including for drug offenses like marijuana possession.

Countries: United States of America, South Korea