Evacuate the Orphans in Haiti

Excuse, after excuse after excuse, on and on and on.

In Haiti right now are hundreds of thousands of orphaned children, both economic and literal. I have heard good ideas for how to help them and for every great idea I come across, I find 3 oppositions. At least 3. Different ways of saying oh hell no.

The orphans who have adoptive families in the United States need to be granted immediate evacuation. I can understand that the building housing the vast volumes of paperwork is destroyed. I also understand that the personnel in charge of processing the vast volumes of paperwork have either died or are attending to their families and friends. But I know there are duplicates out there. There are copies and there are probably multiple copies. Can we please forget for this moment in time that the process of adoption is specifically developed to be redundant, overbearing and intimidating, with futile expenses saddled onto every facet and with arduous steps so mangled in useless subsets that it grinds mercilessly into its own impediment at every turn? Can we please just forget that for a minute? For a month?

Can we say that for the next month or two or six that if you have passed your background check and completed your home study that we will find your child and bring her to you? That for just this moment in time we can ignore the maze and go straight to the goal line. That if you have been matched with a child in Haiti, we will get you your child and we will get him out of that unbearable mess of misery and death, filth and trash, illness, starvation and dehydration. Out of the pain. That we will get her home to you safe. That instead of the focus on legalities, passports, visas, immigration and all the other fussed up government policy and regulation we will be HUMAN.

It's not right that people adopting from Haiti have had children withering in orphanages for years. It's so very very wrong that a child waits 2 to 3 years for a family when one is waiting so specifically for them. But now? Now? Now, if we leave these children as they are it is unforgivable. The people of this country can literally change the direction of a river. Surely we can move small children into safety. Into their new homes, with their adopting families.

I know, we have to have codes. We have to have forms. We have to have complex indecipherable regulations. We have to have checks and balances and we have to be sure no child is placed with a pedophile, an ax murderer, an abuser. We have to use a minimum of 15 different government agencies to process one simple child moving into one simple family, with a minimum of 3 separate people working in each position, each one confusing the situation all the way around, each defining the same regulations with their own perspective.

A newsperson pointed out that simply bringing all of Haiti's orphans to the U.S. could result in complications later. Some of the children might not be real orphans. Some might have extended family who want them. That's not what I am saying. I am saying, children who have identified families here should come here. Now. Adoption agencies know who the families are. The families know who their children are and where they are. The orphanage staff has often met the families and can vouch for them. It just needs to get done.

I had heard earlier tonite that one orphanage was being evacuated to the U.S. but now I am reading that it is stalled. Read about the Bresma orphanage here. Coincidentally, the article I was hoping to cite optimistically turns out to reinforce my point. The process of adoption has torqued out of control holding children back from families who wait.

Can we just.... not? How about if this time we just..... DO.