An independent voice for ethical adoption
January 26 – USCIS Stakeholders Meeting – Haitian Adoptions
Today USCIS held a meeting for adoption stakeholders to discuss the on-going concerns and issues surrounding children being placed for adoption from Haiti.
Among the issues discussed:
Update on recent decision by Government of Haiti:
Many will be aware that the government of Haiti requested additional time to verify the orphan status of children leaving Haiti for the United States. The Department of State and the United States appreciates and applauds this commitment to transparency and ethics on behalf of Haitian children. To that end, the DOS is working hard to collaborate with the government of Haiti to establish a procedure to expedite adoptions in the most transparent way possible, and they expect a new procedure to be in place shortly.
At this time, the U.S. government is continuing to process the humanitarian parole requests, but cannot issue parole letters. Parole letters will be released upon the approval from the government of Haiti. The Embassy is continuing to process childrens’ paperwork so that the procedures don’t get backlogged to ensure that as many eligible children are ready to move at the time that the government of Haiti gives authorization to do so.
USCIS – processing update:
The numbers:
- Over 700 children identified
- Over 500 children approved for humanitarian parole (deemed to be in Categories 1 or 2)
- Approximately 350 children have traveled to the United States
USCIS finds the lists of children by orphanage or group, provided by adoption service providers, to be very helpful.
Emails to haitianadoptions@dhs.gov are best marked with the subject line of the AGENCY or ADOPTIVE PARENT so that the email and information can be grouped appropriately. USCIS will reach out to parents directly with a privacy release.
Trying to accommodate groups that walk in at Embassy: It will be a priority for those already processed to get travel letters when adoptions can resume. Our Embassy is scheduling appointments in both a responsive and a proactive mode. From a staffing perspective, both DOS and DHS have sent staff to help process cases, with 4 more officers on the way. There are also a whole team of folks in Washington DC prescreening and clearing cases.
Until this point, USCIS has prioritized processing the children over responding to emails. They recognize that this might cause some frustration, but want to emphasize that they have really focused on getting children to the U.S. as quickly and safely as possible. USCIS expects to improve email response time in the next few days.
The U.S. government is working on a plan to communicate next steps for parents who have brought children over on humanitarian parole, including establishing citizenship.
Ethics in the process:
Ethica continues to see and hear of instances where adoption service providers and organizations are requesting that parents in-process should remit payment in full for the remainder of their adoption fees for their Haitian adoption. We’ve also seen instances where parents are being recruited to become foster parents under the presumption that they will be able to care for Haitian refugee children. We are very concerned about well-meaning parents falling prey to unscrupulous players at this time of crisis. Please be aware, again, that there is currently NO NEED for foster care families as it relates to the Haitian earthquake crisis. Likewise, parents should be wary about remitting payment in full for an adoption that has not been completed, especially at a time when adoption processing is stalled, however temporarily.
When you see avenues of corruption consider reporting these responses:
- State licensing board
- Better Business Bureau
- reporting the instance to the Department of State, or contacting Ethica to help connect with the Department of State
- If the agency in question is Hague accredited, families can file a complaint with the Hague Complaint Registry.
Ethica recognizes that families in-process are anxious about the uncertainty of the current situation. Parents want to know what they can do to best advocate for their situations. The Department of State wants parents to be very clear that no action is required at this time by families. They do not anticipate this temporary response by the Haitian government to extend more than a few days. Neither government has had a change of heart about paroling these children; neither government wants to slow this process down. Despite portrayals in the media otherwise, this is simply a case where the Haitian government rightly asked for an accounting of who the traveling children are and where they are going. The US government is working closely, transparently, and expeditiously with the Haitian government to provide this information with the expectation that the children will travel once a workflow is in place for providing the Haitian government with the information they request.
Likewise, the sentiment expressed by the Department of State is that these children are currently Haiti’s children, and we must all respect that Haiti has extended a huge amount of trust in the U.S. and the process to allow their children to be paroled out of their country prior to the point where Haiti has determined the process is complete.
As long as all paperwork for a given case has been submitted to the Department of State for a child’s case, families should be thinking about what they need and preparing for the addition of a child to their family, rather than advocating for their individual cases. This will free up our government to continue processing paperwork and working cooperatively with the Haitian government to best meet their needs in this time of crisis.
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