LANSING, Kan. (AP) The adopted daughter of a retired Army officer living in Lansing may soon be sent back to South Korea.
The Kansas City Star reports that on Friday, a federal judge in Kansas ruled in favor of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which seeks to deport Hyebin Schreiber, the legally adopted daughter of retired Lt. Col. Patrick Schreiber.
Schreiber sued after immigration authorities rejected visa and citizenship applications for Hyebin. The woman had been Schreibers niece when he and his wife legally brought the then-15-year-old girl to the U.S. in 2012.
Schreibers deployment the following year to Afghanistan and bad legal advice led the couple to put off her legal adoption until she was 17.
But under immigration law, foreign-born children must be adopted before reaching 16 to derive citizenship from their American parents.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree of the District of Kansas concluded that the (immigration law) in question is not ambiguous.
In a March interview with the Star, the father blamed himself for not fully researching rules on adopting immigrants. He and and his wife, Soo Jin Schreiber, pledged to return with their daughter to South Korea, if need be, to keep the family intact.
In 2013, Patrick Schreiber was deployed to Afghanistan as a chief intelligence officer , one of six tours in a 27-year military career. He stayed there through much of 2014.
Looking back, he regretted not pursuing the adoption before time ran out. I should have put my family ahead of the Army, he said.
Schreibers attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, wrote, Lt. Col. Schreiber is Hyebins father. No one
controverts this simple fact.
Nevertheless, the Agency wants this father to accept that the country he loves and serves has no room in its laws to protect his family.
The couple, both of Korean descent, met in 1995 when Patrick Schreiber, a U.S. citizen, was stationed in South Korea. Soo Jin obtained permanent U.S. resident status after their marriage.
The adoption in late 2014 breezed past Kansas legal requirements. The state issued a birth certificate naming Patrick as Hyebins father and Soo Jin as her mother.
While Hyebins case wound through the legal system, she maintained her resident status by attending the University of Kansas on an F-1 student visa. Today she is a senior, majoring in science.
Her only hope of remaining in the U.S. is if her science studies could attract employers willing to sponsor her in obtaining a work visa. That would allow Hyebin to stay, at least temporarily, in the U.S. after graduating.
