this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Technically, wouldn't he be an illegal immigrant?
There's some room for interpretation
He entered illegally, but also didn't have a choice... But he's also stateless, which is very bad and very messy
But then he was adopted by citizens, which grants citizenship... Assuming you go through the process. Which varies by iteration of Superman, but generally I think they just said he was their biological child
He's also an abandoned baby, which means he could get birthright citizenship by virtue of being found on American soil... We just kind of assume random abandoned babies were born here, because what other option is there? Making people stateless is an international human rights violation
But ultimately, he's not human. He doesn't get human rights, just like how non-human persons don't have rights (even if they have certain protections). It doesn't matter if an orangutan puts on a tie and gets a 9-5 job, even if they could speak and showed the ability to integrate into normal society... At this time, non-human persons are not legally recognized by the US
So... His situation is significantly more tenuous than some of the people getting deported right now. But he probably would have clean paperwork, because the state doesn't know the details of his origin and his adoptive father was smart enough to hide it from the state
Was he legally adopted, without fraudulent documents? How?
IDK, I'm not that into comics, especially DC
I think they just declared him their son (which is a thing you can do if they're still X months old) and got him an SSN and birth certificate. If you have an at home birth, you have quite a while to legitimize it
So, it would be a false declaration, is my point. So he'd still be an illegal alien, just naturalised by fraud.
Is it fraud though? Not necessarily... You could just say "I found this baby, and now it's mine", and if it's young enough it'll get birthright citizenship
But this is mostly splitting hairs... But more fundamentally, I don't believe people can be illegal for existing, so I'm never going to say someone is.
But would Superman get deported if they knew his history? MAGA people are saying they'd deport Jesus if he didn't come in "the right way", you tell me
There is lies by omission. I've never found an extraterrestrial child and made a declaration to get them citizenship and adopt them, but I'd imagine the process isn't just based on trust. Otherwise, there would be no kids needing to normalise their status. All would just get 'adopted' by a citizen at a young age.
It's not meant to be an issue due to birthright citizenship and natural born etc, however. My recollection of the original movie is they found him in his spaceship. In Smallville, the spaceship was hidden in their barn. I think they told people in town he was from Martha's family elsewhere and they adopted him. I don't fully recall, but there was definitely subterfuge. I don't know what the comic said. I don't think they would go into the beurocracy of the adoption process, either way, but having gone through it in real life, I can tell you that it's long and slow with lots of checks and paperwork.
My point is that not only is he an immigrant, he's likely an illegal immigrant under false pretense.
How can a baby give false pretense though?
If you find a baby in a field (hiding the spaceship, let's just leave that quiet), what happens next?
A baby cannot bear false witness... It's a baby. The parents can, but that doesn't necessarily affect the baby's citizenship status
Trade it out for the assumed situation...a Kansas teen gave birth to the kid and left him in a field. This is an American with no documentation... But they're assumed to be legit by their age. And so they get documentation
And yeah, Superman doesn't match that situation exactly, but it looks the same from the outside. The state won't know the difference
Ultimately, there are no illegal people. All these roles are made up.... People live where they live. The system is the problem, not the people
I'm saying that to formally adopt him and to formally grant citizenship, lots of paperwork would need to be done. Some of that would require lies, so although the baby might not have lied, the Kent's would have.
First thing with a child found without parents would be to call the police. They would look for identification or signs of the parents where found. Oh, spaceship!