{"id":2966,"date":"2012-05-27T23:29:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T23:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.againstchildtrafficking.org\/?p=2966"},"modified":"2012-05-27T23:33:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T23:33:09","slug":"help-kairi-sheperd-an-adopted-indian-girl-stay-in-her-home-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/help-kairi-sheperd-an-adopted-indian-girl-stay-in-her-home-in-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Help Kairi Sheperd an Adopted Indian Girl Stay in Her Home in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
Source: http:\/\/genderbytes.wordpress.com<\/a><\/div>\n
May 27, 2012<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Kairi Sheperd<\/p>\n

by Rita Banerji<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Kairi\u2019s story forces us to ask many questions about the fate of\u00a0 India children who are adopted abroad. <\/strong>How do you determine where a person belongs?<\/strong> Is it determined by the color of their skin? The place of their birth? Or is it determined by the environment they\u2019ve been raised in, the people they connect with and the only place they\u2019ve known as \u2018home?\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you return a child to a country you\u2019ve adopted her from, 30 years after the adoption, like you would return a merchandise purchased from a shop? Are children ultimately commodities to be bought, sold, exchanged and returned? <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kairi who was adopted as a baby, and is now 30,\u00a0 is virtually stateless because her adopted mother in the United States failed to do the paperwork for her citizenship before she died.\u00a0 She has no citizenship in India either since she was adopted out according to Indian legal proceedings 30 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Kairi is now being referred to as the \u201cGlobal Orphan.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

Kairi whose mother died after her birth, was adopted from India by an American woman, Erlene Shepherd.\u00a0 Erelen took Kairi with her back to the United States when Kairi was just 3-months-old.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erlene died of cancer when Kairi was 8-years-old.\u00a0\u00a0 Erlene\u2019s death left Kairi in the lurch because now not only was she orphaned for the second time, but suddenly she also had no citizenship.<\/strong> How did that happen?<\/strong> To claim Kairi\u2019s U.S. citizenship, Erlene had to file papers with the US government re-adopting the child before she turned 21.\u00a0 However, Erlene died without doing so, leaving Kairi orphaned and stateless.<\/p>\n

Kairi fell through the cracks of the system again as happens so often with abandoned children.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

Kairi as a little girl wearing a T-shirt with an American flag. She never knew that she isn\u2019t American!<\/p>\n

She developed a drug addiction.\u00a0 Later Kairi was arrested and convicted of the felony of check forgery \u2013 a crime she committed because of her drug habit.\u00a0 This is one the factors that prompted deportation proceedings against Kairi.\u00a0 She is being deported as a \u201ccriminal alien.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the deportation proceedings were in line with immigration enforcement priorities.\u00a0 Their spokesperson Virginia Kice said<\/a>, \u201cICE has reviewed Ms Shepherd\u2019s case at length and believes seeking her removal is consistent with the agency\u2019s immigration enforcement priorities, which include focusing on identification and deportation of aliens with felony criminal convictions.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

At the age of\u00a0 30, Kairi\u00a0 now is staring at the prospect of being deported from the United States to India, a country she left when she was 3 months old.\u00a0 After her adoption Kairi has never been to India!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kairi says being sent back to India would end her life as she knows it.\u00a0 She has never lived in India.\u00a0 Does not know the language and culture.\u00a0 Has no family.\u00a0 How will she survive? <\/strong>It is like taking any child who has grown up in the U.S., lived there all his\/her life and suddenly exiling them, without any means, to a foreign country which they have no understanding of.\u00a0 It is a terribly inhumane!\u00a0 Kairi who suffers from multiple sclerosis says<\/a>, \u201cThe deportation order which may force me to part from my physicians, family, and friends here, could be a death sentence to me.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are at least 40 cases of adults adopted as children in a foreign country who\u00a0 have been deported to their countries of origin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2008, Jennifer Haynes who had been adopted from India, was similarly deported from the US to India<\/a>.\u00a0 Jennifer had been adopted by an American couple when she was 8 years old.\u00a0 She moved to the U.S. where she was\u00a0 sexually abused by Edward Hancox, her adoptive father.\u00a0\u00a0 She was then moved from one foster parent<\/a> to another, and ended up being moved through almost 50 foster homes.\u00a0 In 2008, when Jennifer was 32 years old, she was charged with drug possession,\u00a0 and it was also determined that she had no legal status in the U.S.\u00a0 There after she was deported to India.\u00a0\u00a0 She had two children, ages 8 and 9 years who live in the U.S. without their mother.\u00a0 Jennifer\u00a0 says, \u201cI am away from them for more than four years now and I am not sure if I will ever see them again. What kind of law is this?\u201d
\n<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kairi has a safety net though.\u00a0 She cannot be deported if India does not issue travel documents to her. <\/strong> Her family, adoptive sibling, friends, and lawyers working pro-bono on the case, are hoping the Indian government will simply ignore US efforts to persuade New Delhi to accept her.<\/p>\n

HERE\u2019S HOW YOU CAN HELP KAIRI:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Send an email to the External Affairs Minister and urge the Government of India not to assign any travel documents for Kairi.\u00a0 Here is the email eam@mea.gov.in <\/a><\/li>\n
  2. If you are in the United States please send an email to President Obama and Secretary Clinton and tell them that Kairi is America\u2019s child and the government must protect her.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Source: http:\/\/genderbytes.wordpress.com May 27, 2012 Kairi Sheperd by Rita Banerji Kairi\u2019s story forces us to ask many questions about the fate of\u00a0 India children who are adopted abroad. How do you determine where a person belongs? Is it determined by the color of their skin? The place of their birth? Or is it determined by… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2971,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966\/revisions\/2971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}