Gunshots, criminal gangs: A 5-year-old Haitian girl endures hell to get to CA home | Opinion

Haiti is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in history in the Western Hemisphere, according to the United Nations, with acute hunger affecting one in two Haitians. Gangs control at least 85% of the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, where many legally adopted children languish in orphanages with serious security challenges — including our 5-year-old daughter, Rosie.

My husband and I have been in the process of adopting from Haiti for seven years, and we have been fighting to bring our daughter home since March of last year.

Unfortunately, we are not alone.

Seventy Haitian children in the process of being adopted by U.S. families are trapped in Haitian orphanages, with food shortages, lack of clean water and limited medical care putting their lives in severe danger. Their U.S. parents, who have been through a long and arduous vetting process conducted by both the U.S. and Haitian governments, are desperate to get their kids to safety.

Last May, the U.S. State Department expedited the evacuation of 39 children to their American families, 14 of whom were granted humanitarian parole. Now, 10 months later, with the security situation in Haiti far worse, the State Department refuses to provide equal protection to the remaining children. Over 20 of these children have full and complete Hague adoptions (adoptions that follow and recognize the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption).

We implore the current administration to work closely with the Haitian government to expedite the evacuation of these children for their immediate safety.

Over the last 10 months, Rosie has been evacuated from her orphanage four times, once by Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team due to infiltration by Haitian gangs. As required by Haiti, my husband and I have been in regular communication with Rosie for the last three years, but it has lessened significantly since the last evacuation.

Currently, we don’t know who is taking care of our daughter, as the directors of the orphanage fled the country and are stateside. On a call, Rosie’s nanny shared that she kept hearing gunshots outside the orphanage walls. I didn’t know if Rosie would die while I was on the phone. The gangs gassed the children and threatened to return and kill them and their nannies.

Our little girl was happy, healthy and thriving. Now, she’s severely malnourished, traumatized, withdrawn and in urgent need of health care. We can’t even get the United Nations Children’s Fund to deliver food to the orphanage because they say it’s too dangerous.

Every day, we fear for our daughter’s safety, pray for her protection and wish for her to soon be in our arms for the very first time.

The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince has evacuated most of its staff and is on ordered departure, with a Level 4 travel alert issued for Haiti. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a ban on commercial flights, and American Airlines has withdrawn flights to Haiti through 2025. While our country has provided emergency services to U.S. citizens in Haiti, the children who have been officially adopted by U.S. parents have not received the same treatment.

Many rescue organizations are willing to airlift our daughter and the other children out of Haiti, but we cannot procure the needed support from our government to remove them from the war zone-like environment. In early 2024, the governments of the U.S., Haiti and the Dominican Republic collaborated to expedite the departure of 39 adoptees. It is evident that expedited immigration procedures and travel can be done under horrific circumstances and should be considered now.

We are currently stuck in the passport phase. Our daughter had to travel through gang territory not once, but four times to the Immigration Department to submit her passport. The U.S. government could avoid all this trauma by collaborating with Haitian authorities to prioritize the safety of our children. Our daughter could be home next week, but we are stuck waiting on government authorities for the processing of our daughter’s passport and visa. In any other escalating crisis, passports and visas can be issued within 48 hours.

The unrelenting trauma Rosie and others are facing each and every day they wait is unnecessary. The safety of our children has not been prioritized. It is a matter of life and death.