Crapser was abused, abandoned by two different sets of adoptive parents; then he was deported after run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed citizenship papers for him
Adam Crapser lives in limbo, a stranger in South Korea, the country of his birth.
Forcibly separated from his wife, children and friends in America, he is isolated by language and culture, left alone to navigate this sprawling city he’s been expelled to four decades after being sent to adoptive parents in Michigan at age 3.
Crapser was abused and abandoned by two different sets of adoptive parents in the United States; then he was deported after run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed citizenship papers for him. He told The Associated Press in an interview that he has struggled in South Korea with intense anxiety and depression, even as he searches for answers about why his life has become defined by displacement.
That search has led him to file a landmark lawsuit against South Korea’s government and a private adoption agency, the Seoul-based Holt Children’s Services, over what Crapser calls gross negligence regarding the way he and thousands of other Korean children were sent to the United States and other Western nations without accounting for their future citizenship.
The 200 million won ($177,000) civil suit, which was described exclusively to the AP ahead of its filing Thursday by Crapser’s lawyers in a Seoul court, exposes a dark side of South Korean adoptions, which exploded as a business during the 1970s and ’80s when many children were carelessly and unnecessarily removed from their families.
The country was then at the height of a so-called « child export » frenzy pushed by military dictatorships that focused on economic growth and reducing the number of mouths to feed. There was no stringent oversight of adoption agencies, which were infamous for aggressive child-gathering activities and fraudulent paperwork as they competed to send more children abroad at faster speeds.
Crapser’s case also highlights the shaky legal status of possibly thousands of South Korean adoptees in the United States whose parents may have failed to get them citizenship, potentially leaving them vulnerable to deportation if they acquire a criminal record in a country that’s becoming increasingly aggressive about going after undocumented immigrants.
Crapser, who was named Shin Seong-hyeok by his Korean mother, is one of five adoptees who the Seoul government confirms now live in South Korea after being deported from the United States. Several of the deportees have reportedly dealt with mental health issues and served jail time in South Korea for assault and other crimes.
Activists say the South Korean government has done a poor job tracking deported adoptees and that the real number is almost certainly larger. Officials wouldn’t provide details about the other deportees.
