Political Quotes

“It is incredibly important that we finish the job we undertook when we rescued just over 1,200 Haitian orphans immediately following the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12 earlier this year. All in all, 1.5 million people were directly affected in terms of human and economic impact. It was one of the worst natural disasters ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. In response to this disaster, the Department of Homeland Security instituted a policy for the immediate evacuation of Haitian orphans who had been adopted or were in the process of being adopted as citizens. Now, in the United States with their adoptive or prospective adoptive American parents, these children need one more bit of assistance. Had the earthquake not hit and disrupted the adoption process in Haiti, each of these children would have entered the country as United States citizens under current immigration law. But because of the emergency procedures used to evacuate these children, they must now wait years before they can get permanent residency and years more before they can qualify for citizenship.”