Dear President Obama,
I just read the story of Adam Crapser of Vancouver, Washington, USA. I too live in Vancouver, but in British Columbia, Canada. I write to you as a citizen of the world. A lifelong social justice activist, overtime stumbling into various elected public offices, I am now back being a citizen activist.
Adam came to the USA, an adoptee from South Korea, at the age of three. He is now thirty seven and is being deported from the United States of America. For six years he and his sister suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the adoptive parents. He was often whipped and confined to dark rooms for long periods of time. At the end of very traumatic six years the family abandoned him. He and his sister were split up. Adam was shunted around different foster and boys' homes before being sent to a foster family headed by Thomas and Dolly Crapser.
Unfortunately Crapsers who had as many as ten foster children were even more abusive than Crapser's first adoptive parents. Often the Crapser children's mouths were duct taped. Crapser has described being hit over his head with a two by four, his nose broken and his hand intentionally burnt--all as punishment for his alleged bad behaviour. The foster parents were subsequently charged with many criminal offences including assault and rape; and were convicted on several counts including several criminal assaults and mistreatment and at least one of sexual abuse.
At16 Adam Crapser was kicked out of the Crapser home over the use of a phone. He spent time sleeping in homeless shelters, at friends' or in his car. Then one day desperate to salvage his rubber shoes and his Korean bible, the only remaining bits of his Korean childhood, he broke into the Crapser home, was charged with a criminal offence, plead guilty to burglary spending 25 months in jail. Subsequently he had other minor run-ins with the law.
He once owned a barber shop and then worked as an auto insurance claims estimator. Just as he was trying to hold down a more permanent job, he realised nobody had ever applied for his US citizenship. He applied for a green card. And now he is being deported to South Korea.
President Obama, as an immigrant in Canada from India, I shudder to think how bewildered and frightened I might be if I had been brought into this country at three and now at thirty seven I was being deported to India.
If one is born to an illegal alien in the US, one is deemed a US citizen and has the protection of the US law, which protection Donald Trump, in one of his racism tinged policies wants to take away.
Mr. President, can you tell me how Crapser being brought in at three, legally adopted by US citizens and now being deported is different, at least in spirit if not law, from a child born in the US who could be forcibly deported by a President Trump along with his/her illegal alien parents?
President Obama, one more thing. I understand you have the right to pardon anyone of any offence in the United States of America. And I remember that in some instances you have used the pardon power. Adam is American. He knows of or belongs to no other country. Will you help him remain American in America?
Mr. President, Adam Crapser is as deserving of a presidential pardon as anyone. Will you please use the presidential power of pardon to PARDON Adam?
@ujjaldosanjh