53 Haitian Orphans are Airlifted to the U.S.

The government isn't always the quickest guy out of the blocks, but sometimes he just might surprise you. Sometimes, with an extraordinary amount of tenacity and persistence, our government does some pretty darn good stuff.

Below is an incredible story of just that. I have some experience in trying to get the government to move expeditiously to help children in times of crisis (not for a front page story, but because it is the right thing to do). In my past life during a mission my boss led to the tiny, poor, economically-deprived country of Moldova, we met a 17 year old woman who had been lured into the sex trade in Turkey. Once it became clear that she was sold into slavery, stripped of her identification and her innocence, she jumped out of a 6th story window to escape her captors and the life of hell that sex slaves are forced into. Her injuries verged on paralysis while she lay in a Turkish prison for weeks before being sent back to Moldova to spend her life in a dark, dreary "rehabilitation" room. No plan to fix her injuries, because there was no means to do so. Her doctor predicted her future to be this bed in this room. Forever. Upon meeting her, my boss and the two other Congresswoman on our trip refused to allow this child to suffer such a horrific fate.

Within days, we arranged for a med-evac company out of Ohio to fly to Moldova with a team of doctors, nurses and medical support staff, pick her up, bring her to Texas where an orthopedic surgeon agreed to donate what would turn out to be several surgeries to fix her spine. Ironically, well as fate would have it, the Fort Worth community she would be healing in had a considerable Russian Orthodox community that would visit her every day, serve as her family in America as she received her treatment to heal.

Done - we were ready to go... all we needed was the State Department to allow the young woman into the country on a temporary visa. You would not believe the hoops we had to jump through to make this happen. It was like we wanted to fly to the moon. We succeeded, not without drama, hiccups, and round the clock attention as the flight returned to the U.S. with our girl on board. She arrived in Texas, a year and several surgeries later, she took her first steps and would be walking fully not long after. I wish I knew where she was today. I only hope that she has been able to escape the cyclical horror of the sex trade. But, the tides are turning thanks to the great work by dozens of incredible organizations like Sage, International Justice Mission, Somaly Mam, and so many more. The U.S. government has made fighting sex trafficking at home and abroad a priority through the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Her story is one of too many. I've had my beef with Marie Claire Magazine over the years, but this piece is compelling and demonstrates the horror of this human rights abuse abroad.

And now I will step down from my soap box. I write all this because I miss that part of my old life, but mostly because the story below reminds me of how difficult it can be to move mountains and make things happen. This story today in Haiti is the result of persistence by government in government to bring these parentless children into the arms of the adoptive families who will provide them with a safe and loving home after such tragedy.

53 Haitian Orphans Are Airlifted to U.S.

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and SEAN D. HAMILL

Published: January 19, 2010

MIAMI — A group of 53 Haitian orphans landed in Pittsburgh on Tuesday morning, the first wave to arrive after the United States loosened its policy on visa requirements to expedite Americans’ adoptions of parentless children living in the post-earthquake ruins.

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Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

The first wave of Haitian orphans, 53 whose orphanage was destroyed in the earthquake, arrived Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

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But the new policy, announced late Monday, affects only 900 children whom the Haitian government had already identified as orphans, and whom adoption agencies had matched with couples in the United States.

Tens of thousands of children are believed to have been orphaned in the quake, and their fate remains unclear, aid groups and United Nations officials say.

Catholic leaders in Miami are pushing both governments to have children who appear to be orphaned airlifted to temporary group homes in South Florida. Several aid groups who focus on children, however, say every effort should be made to reunite them with relatives.

It normally takes three years to adopt a child from Haiti, because of a lengthy process required under Haitian law. The Haitian government has had reason to be cautious; there are about 200 orphanages in Haiti, but United Nations officials say not all are legitimate. Some are fronts for traffickers who buy children from their parents and sell them to couples in other countries. “In orphanages in Haiti there are an awful lot of children who are not orphans,” said Christopher de Bono, a Unicef spokesman.

Under the new policy, announced Monday night by the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the United States is waiving visa requirements on humanitarian grounds for Haitian children already in the pipeline for adoption. Some adoptions had already been approved by Haitian authorities, but the United States also agreed to let in other children who had been matched with American parents but had not gotten a final blessing from Haitian officials.

“The U.S. government has never done this in the past,” said Mary F. Robinson, president of the National Council for Adoption. “They are really going all out to expedite the process.”

Homeland Security Department officials said they were walking a fine line, trying to let in bona fide orphans without opening the floodgates to all children who have been separated from their parents.

“We remain focused on family unification and must be vigilant not to separate children from relatives in Haiti who are still alive but displaced, or to unknowingly assist criminals who traffic in children in such desperate times,” said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the department.

Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania played an instrumental role in bringing the first planeload of children out of Haiti, and the bureaucratic difficulties his team faced underscore the legal and moral complexities of transferring hundreds of children to a new country in the middle of a catastrophe that has crippled the Haitian government.

“There were many times we thought we were coming back with no one,” Mr. Rendell said Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

After an all-night journey on two planes, the children — some wrapped in blankets, some carried by nurses and doctors, some walking and waving — came off a donated jet at Pittsburgh International Airport just after 9 a.m. and were taken by bus to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of U.P.M.C. with a police escort.

Some of their adoptive parents waited anxiously while doctors examined the children, most of whom are under the age of 4.

“We just kept expecting the worst-case scenario, that they wouldn’t survive, that they’d be looted, that they’d run out of water,” said Jill Lear of Watertown, S.D., who arrived with her husband, Bruce, to wait for two children they were to adopt.

Mr. Rendell and Representative Jason Altmire flew Monday to Haiti on a chartered plane carrying medical supplies and 20 doctors and nurses. The plan was to drop off the supplies and pick up children from an orphanage run by two sisters, Jamie and Alison McMutrie from a Pittsburgh suburb, Ben Avon, Pa..

The orphanage was so badly damaged that the McMutrie sisters and the children were living in a courtyard. With a borrowed cellphone, they sent out appeals for help, saying they had only enough provisions for a few days.

Having lobbied the White House for several days, the Pennsylvania delegation had obtained United States visas for the children and had expected to be on the ground one hour.

But Haitian officials would let only 28 of the 54 orphans the sisters had brought to the airport to leave; the rest had not cleared all the hurdles for adoption. Seven had yet to be matched with adoptive parents, the Haitians said.

Then the sisters dug in their heels. “They just said no, they wouldn’t leave without all of them,” Mr. Altmire said.

For five hours, the delegation worked furiously to get the Haitian government to agree to let all the children go. The governor’s wife, Judge Marjorie O. Rendell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, went to Port-au-Prince to meet with American diplomats. Mr. Rendell and Mr. Altmire lobbied the White House, which pressured Haitian officials.

The chartered plane was forced to return to Miami before a deal was reached, Mr. Rendell said, but the delegation stayed in Haiti. But at 11 p.m., the Haitian officials relented and the children were evacuated on a United States military cargo plane to Orlando, Fla., where they transferred to the jet to Pennsylvania. One child was found to be missing at the last minute in Haiti, and Jamie McMutrie stayed behind to find her. They were expected to arrive here Wednesday.