A piece in today’s New York Times by Brian Knowlton reports that a growing number of overseas Americans are renouncing their citizenship. See “More American Expatriates Give Up Citizenship.”  Although the numbers are a small fraction of the estimated 5.2 million U.S. citizens living abroad, the number of renunciations increased from 235 in 2008 to 743 in 2009.  In most cases, the decision is made for financial reasons, including  tax and banking issues.

Intercountry adoption was already controversial in Russia, but the issues were heightened by the case this week of a 7-year-old adopted Russian child who was sent back to Russia alone by his adoptive mother in Tennessee.  Clifford J. Levy reports in the New York Times that the Russian government has proposed suspending all adoptions by Americans; see “Russia Calls for Halt on U.S. Adoptions After Return of Boy.” From the Associated Press, see Nataliya Vasilyeva and Kristin M.

The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in a case challenging citizenship laws that treat the nonmarital children of US citizen mothers and fathers differently.  The case, Flores-Villar v. United States, 536 F.3d 990 (9th Cir. 2009) (Supreme Court docket no. 09-5801) poses an equal protection issue similar to the one in Nguyen v. I.N.S., 533 U.S. 53 (2001).  Nguyen concerned the nonmarital child of a U.S.

According to the New York Times, more than 3.2 million noncitizens are married to U.S.

The annual Adoption Policy Conference at New York Law School, set for March 5, 2010,  will focus on “Permanency for Children,” including panels on the Haitian orphan situation and immigration issues and children’s rights. The conference is presented by The Center for Adoption Policy, The Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law Schoo

In response to the recent earthquake in Haiti, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have implemented a special process to assist prospective adoptive parents with pending adoption cases in Haiti.  The Humanitarian Parole policy is described in detail in this Fact Sheet issued by DHS.  The policy applies only to children who were orphaned or separate

Here’s a story published in the Washington Post, written by Ingrid Brown of the Jamaica Observer:  “Far from their island, Jamaican children struggle with new expectations.”

Children who arrived in the United States as undocumented immigrants would have a special path to permanent residence status under the “Dream Act” sponsored  in the Senate by Richard Durbin (S.729) and in the House by Representative Howard Berman (H.R. 1751).  The bills would “permit States to determine State residency for higher education purposes and . . .

“Baby Boom of Mixed Children Tests South Korea,” a story by Martin Fackler in the New York Times, reports on the many births that have occurred in recent years to hundreds of thousands of married couples formed by Korean men and women from other countrieses in Asia.    Fackler reports that these are known as multicultural families in Korea, and they tend to be concentrated in the poorer rural farming areas.  Marriages to foreigners were 11 percent of all marriages in South Korea in 2008.

Following up on the story I noted last week here, today’s New York Times has a piece by John F.