Can a citizen child adopt his illegal parents?

No. The adoption process is only applied for someone 18 or older to adopt a minor (and rarely an adult, who must be a US legal resident/citizen).

What you may be thinking about is "family re-unification", a part of the 1965 Immigration law that allows a citizen's family to apply for visas to be reunified in the US. However, the citizen must be 18 or older in order to start a family re-unification process. That is, the citizen child has no legal avenue to remove his or her parents' illegal status.


This is a common misunderstood concept that leads children of illegal parents to be misnamed "anchor babies", even though they have little actual ability to help their parents gain legal status. If the illegal parents are caught and deported, the only choices for the children are to join their parents in their country or origin, or stay in the US under foster care services without their parents. See the Elvira Arellano case where the illegal parent was deported and force to take her son, a US citizen, with her or leave him to foster care.