Comment re: what is happening at the U.S. Consulate in Haiti

... I have multiple emails inquiring as to why those visas have been denied. I can not give specifics via this blog because of confidentiality toward those families.

However, what I can say is that there is a "witch hunt" going on in Haiti to prove to the world that things are done fraudulently in Haitian adoptions.

Orphanage directors have been treated with disrespect by the consular office. There emails are not answered. Their telephone calls are not taken. They are given the run-around.

New procedure is to pay for the visa fee right away, so that there is a record of an application (either for the orphan investigation I-604) or for the actual visa (for adoption files who already have their I-604 approvals from the Haitian USCIS office). I learned today that one orphanage director was not allowed to pay for his/her families' visa files...thus it completely defies the purpose to have a recording system where files are paid for right away. Thus we are back to having only certain files of adoptions recorded at the consulate while others try unsuccessfully to get their files in!

Orphanage directors are accused of submitting fraudulent documents or forgeries to the consulate. These documents range from Archive documents to IBESR documents. For example, one orphanage director was accused of having submitted a forged Archive birth certificate. So, this director went back and got a newly issues Archive document to prove it was not fraudulent. So, the director comes back with the newly issued document, just to be told that this one is fraudulent also! However, the consulate refused to go to the Archive office themselves to check out the actual book where the birth certificate is recorded!

Birth mothers are "raked through the coals" (as an adoption agent said today, quite rightly describing what is happening during birth parent interviews) by the consulate. They are treated in a disrespectful and degrading manner. This is something the consulate denies, however, they have yet to record the interviews for internal checks and balances. Parents are shamed for having given up their children. Their are told "not so nice" things of what we (the adoptive parents) may do to their children. Some birth mothers have folded under pressure and have reportedly said, "I never meant to give up my child for adoption."

It should not be happening this way. There should be an outcry across the United States from all the adoptive families. This is abuse of the system. This is our government and tax dollars at work --- to work against adoptions.

I find it curious that the U.S. government is in favor of adoptions (officially and on paper) and then their agents do whatever is in their power to give adoptions a bad name (see Vietnam article) and to shut adoptions down (i.e. Haiti and Vietnam) currently.

Nonetheless, adoptive families and adoption organizations sit idly by and keep quiet, hoping for the best when this should be a public outcry.

Yes, I am outraged to what is going on in the U.S. Consulate in Haiti right now and I am going to take my constitutional right to speak up about this.