Congress has introduced the Protect Adoptees and American Families Act, also known as the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2025, continuing a decades-long fight to secure US citizenship for all adopted people brought to the United States for adoption.
The Protect Adoptees and American Families Act (PAAF), introduced this past week in the US Senate, seeks one result: securing US citizenship for intercountry adoptees who have been denied that citizenship for decades, largely because of the adopted person’s age. While most people assum that children adopted by U.S. citizen parents receive automatic U.S. citizenship at the time they are adopted, this is not true for many older intercountry adoptees. Tens of thousands of intercountry adopted people, now adults, do not have U.S. citizenship through their adoptive parents today.
PAAF, known as the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2025 in the House, seeks to amend U.S. immigration law to repeal the current age-based restriction, which has denied acquired U.S. citizenship to adoptees born on or before February 27, 1983 (or to put it another way, current law denies acquired US citizenship to adopted people who were 18 or older on February 27, 2001). Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebrakas) are the House sponsors of the bill; Sen. Mazie Horono (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) are the Senate sponsors.
As introduced, the bills would provide automatic citizenship to intercountry adoptees no matter their date of birth, provided they meet the core requirements of the law. Before having reached the age of 18, the adoptee must have been:
- adopted by a United States citizen;
- lawfully admitted to the United States;
- physically present in the United States in the legal custody of the US citizen parent.
In addition, the adopted person must have never previously obtained US citizenship, and must also be residing in the United States at the time the bill is enacted. Additional provisions address intercountrry adopted people who have previously been deported, though additional requirements apply to deportees to obtain a visa to return to the United States.
Adoptees United is tracking the bill and has a summary and analysis of it here, including a PDF copy of the bill, which has not yet been published.