Comments about ‘Deseret News in Haiti: Plans yo-yo for Haitian children headed to Utah’

I can't wait until you get home--ALL OF YOU! You are MY HEROS! Thanks for being the ones to sacrafice your time to make this happen!

Prayers and Safe Journey!

I pray to god that all the orphan children are adopted and in safe hands.

How can anyone call kidnapping and human trafficking heroic? Adoption agency's and parents wanting children are using this tragedy as an excuse to kidnap and extricate children from their homes. If it was humanitarian service their would be intent to return these children after the dust settles.

What is happening is a permanent effort by black market adoption agency's to sell these children to US parents, bypassing all adoption procedures. Is that what you call looking out for the children? Not in my book.

My heart is breaking. This isn't an adoption issue but an immigration issue. These kids are children of US citizens. Other countries participating in international adoption have brought their kids home. Some kids made it home. Traffickers aren't traveling through US airports to smuggle kids out of Haiti.

We need to have it recognized that adopted kids of US citizens are citizens as soon as it's final in country instead of after they walk across a US airport check in. That way they won't have to wait for birth country passport and then applying for VISA to the US. This has added half a year at least to these families wait time. If they just needed to apply for US passport they may have gotten home by now.

Please make sure these children don't have extended family who can care for them. It would be tragic to sweep these kids out of their homeland and place them in a country where they won't be able to speak their language, learn the culture and be able to worship in the religion they are accustomed to.

This is most definitely not kidnapping or human trafficking. The children they are working to bring to the US have been in the adoption process for quite some time - their US parents have been working through the red tape for months if not years to bring them home. Only children/parents who have reached a certain point in their paperwork can be granted humanitarian parole. The work being done now is simply an attempt to speed up the process and finish the last few steps in order to rescue these children from deplorable conditions.

Now, I do agree that no "new" adoptions should be started yet (i.e. children who were orphaned as a result of the earthquake). In many cases, these children have simply been separated from their family and rescuers need time to reunite them.

@"Heroic?": you don't know what you're talking about. Every one of the 70 children Wasatch is trying to get on a plane was ALREADY BEING ADOPTED by a US family. They have to be at a certain stage of getting visas etc to be on that list. Some are more than 2 years into the adoption process. That's hardly bypassing "all" adoption procedures and it isn't balck market when the agency has been working with the Hatian government on these cases for years. Human trafficking is evil, but this isn't it. Save your outrage.

I am personally friends with some of these people trying to get these children out. I have watched and heard the stories of these kids for the last 2 YEARS. The kids that they are trying to get out are ORPHANS and do not have family wanting them. And the people adopting them WANT to love them and care for them. Please stop with the child trafficking comments. If you are this uneducated on the process that is taking place then you have NO place to comment on it.

It seems like some of the posters can't read. These children were already IN orphanages before the quake hit. They are orphans. They just need homes. I have gone through the process of adopting foreign children. Believe me, the official paperwork, checks and balances etc. are staggering. The United States does make it a bit quicker for adoptions, but nevertheless it is only because they give it priority.
Let these children have a home and worry more about illegal aliens slipping across our borders and that kind of "human-traffic" crossing illegally. How do you think we got a 9/11 here?

Let's get these kids in a home where they can have food and a bed. In a few months, let's help those who want to return to Aunts and Uncles in Haiti to go home. Why do we need to argue about who gets the credit and who gets the blame.

When it has been stated "it will take decades" to rebuild and complete the work that lies ahead, how can returning "children after the dust settles" even be an option? Where in this article, or any article, has there been any evidence of anything other than policies and procedures being followed to the letter of the law? Cited here children dying while waiting for the paper trail to be concluded. I'm grateful your book isn't responsible for "looking out for the children".

To those who are helping the people of Haiti during this extreme time, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. You are doing the Best work right now.

I don't think some of those commenting here have any idea how extremely tragic and desperate the country of Haiti is right now.

The vast majority of orphans that are being shipped out were in orphanages BEFORE the earthquake struck and were in the LONG process of being adopted. Tens of thousands became orphans as a result of the earthquake and they may have living relatives in the country but they hardly have any food! Should children die of starvation while we look for aunts and uncles that can not care for them? It is a matter of life and death - literally and trying to make judgments based on our cultural viewpoint is asinine.

I agree if you have no knowledge on how the adoption process works in Haiti then you have no business commenting on it! How would you like it if your child you have been in the process of adopting for over 2 years who is LEGALLY yours is stuck in an earthquake raviged city and you want them HOME. These kids are mostly waiting on visas. These kids have been sitting in an orphanage for YEARS waiting for a FAMILY to call their own. These are not orphans because of the earthquake they have be in orphanges most of their lives. Come on if your going to comment at least educate yourself before you do!

The orphans travelling to US and Netherlands not only were already in orphanage before the quake hit, they were actually already adopted. Steps were done before the quake to make certain no change of heart in the adoption process from birth family. Most of these kids already carry their adoptive parents names legally in the eyes of the Haitian government.

This is like letting your bio child go to Haiti to visit grandma for a week, a quake hits and because of fear of trafficking they won't let your child come home cause if they let one child leave the country it may be the wrong child to leave so nobody gets to go.

Not very long from know we will be in the same situation as Haiti, if not worse. Not only will there be death destruction but famine disease water shortage vandalism and more.How will look out for us how many people will be screaming. How will take in your children then. This is real, only the begin of much destruction. No buddy really wants to look at the big picture. There is but a few that are making comments on these postings, a lot out there know what I am talking about they just don't want to believe that this is at our door step.
Yes my heart goes out to these children and the people of Haiti. My prayers are with those that are really going something about it. The relief that has been sent is only a pea in a bucket compared to the vast destruction that has happened.Learn from them so when the time come we can stand up and be countable. God bless you that are out there in the field and not on these computers making stupid comments.

whoever commented 'heroic?', please quit calling this adoption process (already put in place by the haitian government) kidnapping and human trafficking. even before the earthquake, there were 380,000 orphans in haiti. 380,000...can you wrap your brain around that? each child wanting a mother and father to look after them. unfortunately, the majority of people in haiti don't have the means to adopt those children. that is what the truth is. these utah (and surrounding families) have been and are continuing to follow the laws...give them a break and quit being so quick to comment when you obviously don't know the situation.

I totally agree that ripping these precious children from their homeland forever, is unconscionable. But to bring them to a safe harbor, where, in a few months, or a few years, they will have the option of making their own decisions based on the facts available is the desired result.

We are our brothers keepers, not owners. These beautiful children should never be "harvested", even in moments of passion and humanitarianism.

They should have been more clear. These children are not orphaned by the earthquake.
These are children who have been orphaned for a long time. The need to speed up their adoptions is because the orphanages THEY WERE AT BEFORE THE QUAKE were destroyed. These children have been in process for a long time.
Quake orphan adopting is a totally different issue. People coming out of the woodwork and volunteering to adopt Haitian children now is a totally different issue.
These are parents who have been seeking for a long time to adopt children. Why they have chosen to adopt children from Haiti I do not know, but it is not a reaction to the earthquake.
The question is not between families in Haiti and families in the US. If you want to talk about REAL KIDNAPPING, than talk about how Guesno Marty, the director of Foyer de Sion, had his two-year-old son kidnapped and how the main suspect, whose phone was used to make the call demanding ransom, escaped from prison at the time of the earthquake.
Brother Marty is not the perpetrator but the victim.

TO the 2:44 commentator,
Do you oppose all international adoptions, or only selectively some.
If so, where is your outrage at all the Chinese and Korean children being adopted into the US?

I adopted my daughter from the Foyer de Sion Orphanage this past September. It was a long, difficult process(3 Years). I know many of these children coming home on the plane and I know their parents. We visited often on parent trips over the years together. I would like to respond to all of you choosing to use the word "orphan" when referring to these kids: They are NOT orphans. They have families here in the states that have LEGALLY adopted them. Their last name is that of their adoptive parents. They know them. Shame on those of you choosing to not educate yourselves on the LEGITIMATE process these families have gone through to adopt their children and shame on you for implying that these parents are kidnapping or trafficking them. Get off your high horse and find another issue you know nothing about to pass judgement on. These families need to have their children home and deserve the same respect that you would if your child was stuck in a nightmare like these kids are. -Amber