A woman adopted as a toddler by an American war veteran, who he found in the 1970s in an Iranian orphanage and raised as a Christian, is being threatened with deportation to Iran, a country notoriously dangerous for Christians and now on the brink of war with the United States.
She is one of thousands adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of a fracture at the intersection of adoption and immigration law.
The woman, who The Associated Press is not naming because of her legal situation, received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month ordering her to appear for removal proceedings before an immigration judge in California. She has no criminal record. The letter says she is eligible for deportation because she overstayed her visa in March 1974 at 4 years old.
“I never imagined it would get to where it is today,” said the woman, who believes that, as a Christian and the daughter of an American Air Force officer, deportation to Iran might be a death sentence. “I always told myself that there is no way that this country could possibly send someone to their death in a country they left as an orphan. How could the United States do that?”
The already terrifying prospect of being deported to Iran was made more so in recent days, she said, as the Trump administration began amassing the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, preparing for possible military action against Iran if talks over its nuclear program fail.
