Somehow God’s Littlest Angels orphanage in the mountains above
had survived the destructive shaking intact and all 150 of its charges
were safe. Over the next 10 days, U.S. families who were already in the
process of adopting 83 of the children organized a frantic effort to
bring them to
On Friday, a jetliner delivered the U.S.-bound
orphans to the city’s international airport. The children, ranging in
age from newborns to 6-year-olds, were united with their adoptive
families for the first time since the
“I’m excited and overjoyed,” said
who was watching Benicio, 21 months, until his adoptive mother arrived
on an inbound flight. “He leaked all over me when I changed his diaper!
It’s been a good day.”
The so-called
as their new families work out the final details of their adoptions.
They are among a number of unions of adopting U.S. families and Haitian
orphans this week helped by a new policy of the State Department and
Department of Homeland Security that permits expedited entry for
children already in the adoption pipeline.
Several hundred Americans were in various stages of adopting Haitian children when the earthquake struck, said
the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for overseas citizens
services. Many of them are “frantic with worry about the children’s
welfare and they want to know how to expedite adoption so the children
can be brought safely home to
special temporary visa, called a “humanitarian parole,” already had
been granted to 400 children, who had either made their way or would
soon come to
“Given the circumstances, that’s quite an impressive number,” Mattson said.
Ila, a 3-year-old orphan, had been promised to them three years ago. If it wasn’t for the earthquake in
On Wednesday, they received even more good news in
the form of a call from their agency, One World Adoption Services: They
pick up Ila in
“As a Christian, I really believe the Lord did not cause this,” Hubner said. “But blessings really do come out of tragedies.”
Other countries have chartered planes to airlift children out of
Offers to adopt children whose parents were killed
in the quake have been pouring in from around the globe, international
adoption agencies report. But for now, new applications have been put
on hold, they say.
The crisis has prompted the U.S. and Haitian
governments to work on streamlining the adoption process. But Mattson
said that work remains in progress, and she could not provide details
of what a streamlined system would look like.
Some of those awaiting adoption will face new
headaches, given all of the paperwork and bureaucratic infrastructure
that has been destroyed on the island.
That will likely be a major problem going forward,
as hundreds, maybe thousands, of children are identified as earthquake
orphans. Essential paperwork is lost. Courts are destroyed. Families
are separated, and in some cases it is difficult to discern if parents
are dead or simply missing.
In comments about the unfolding disaster earlier this week, Secretary of State
“We will not let red tape stand in the way of
helping those in need, but we will ensure that international adoption
procedures to protect children and families are followed,” Clinton said
at a Wednesday news briefing in
After the quake struck,
home, they used the Internet and telephone lines to begin a campaign to
bring the Haitian children to U.S. soil as soon as possible, he said.
By Wednesday,
During the process, she got pregnant with their
first biological child, Nathaniel, now 9 months old. After her plane
was diverted twice due to foul weather,
“He was in my husband’s arms and sound asleep,” she said from
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
