Families from Tennessee to California seek humanitarian parole for adopted children in Haiti
At only 6 years old, Esai Reed has endured three emergency evacuations from orphanages across Haiti as gangs pillage and plunder their way through once peaceful communities.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — At only 6 years old, Esai Reed has endured three emergency evacuations from orphanages across Haiti as gangs pillage and plunder their way through once peaceful communities.
He is now in northern Haiti under the care of a U.S. organization after the director of Esai’s last orphanage fled the troubled Caribbean country where gangs control 80% of the capital.
Nearly five months have passed since the last evacuation, and in that time, Esai, who loves soccer and is mischievous, hasn’t been able to talk to his adoptive mother in the U.S. or his two older brothers who live with her as internet connections and other logistics falter.
“Clearly, this is an emergency,” said Michelle Reed, a 51-year-old teacher and single mother who lives in Florida.
Reed’s is one of 55 families from Tennessee to California asking the U.S. government for humanitarian parole for some 70 children they’re adopting. It was an opportunity the U.S. granted to more than a dozen other children earlier this year when gangs attacked key government infrastructure and forced Haiti’s main international airport to close for nearly three months, prompting evacuations of dozens of U.S. citizens and 39 children from March to May who had final adoption decrees.
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