A mad rush for passports is now on in Haiti, as dozens of children are stuck in orphanages across the problem-plagued Caribbean territory unable to leave the increasingly volatile country and start new lives with adoptive parents in America.

This is a result of a United States policy change, which has unleashed a rush for passports at Haiti’s main immigration office in the capital, Port-au-Prince. US President Joe Biden announced last month that America will accept 30,000 people a month from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela if they pass a background check, have an eligible sponsor and possess a passport to travel.

The ensuing demand for Haitian passports has overwhelmed Haiti’s passport office in Port-au-Prince, where people with appointments cannot squeeze through the aggressive crowd or secure new appointments.

Meanwhile, adoptive parents say the US State Department has declined to grant passport waivers, as they worry their children will succumb to hunger, cholera or gang violence.

State Department responds

A spokesperson for the State Department said intercountry adoption is one of the agency’s highest priorities and that it uses all appropriate tools to identify and overcome barriers.

According to the spokesperson, “We understand that it is currently difficult for prospective adoptive parents to obtain a Haitian passport…..We remain committed to helping prospective adoptive parents navigate the often-complicated journey of intercountry adoption. We will continue to engage with the Haitian government on this issue.”

Given the ongoing crush at Haiti’s main immigration office, government officials recently opened two makeshift offices in a gymnasium and a soccer field elsewhere in Port-au-Prince. They also implemented a schedule setting aside specific days for groups including women and the elderly.

Saturdays have been reserved for children. Officials say they don’t know how many Haitian children are in this situation but indicated that two of 11 US agencies that are main providers of adoption services in Haiti say a dozen or more of their children are affected and the number has been rising.

From 2016 to 2020, people adopted 827 children from Haiti, according to the most recent statistics from the State Department. Only 96 children were adopted in 2020, down from a high of 227 in 2017.

Caribbeanlife.com quoted the agency’s Haiti programme coordinator, Stephanie Thoet, as saying that at one adoption agency, the Colorado-based A Love Beyond Borders, at least 13 children in Haiti have been adopted but have been unable to obtain passports amid a processing backlog that is growing every day.

She noted that even Haiti’s Ministry of the Interior has been unable to access the passport office to manually deliver the files of adopted children and worries about officials being killed or kidnapped by gangs as they travel back and forth with paperwork that has taken years to complete.

At another agency, Utah-based Wasatch International Adoption, at least a dozen children, who already have been adopted can’t obtain a passport, and the number is growing, explained Chareyl Moyes, the agency’s Haiti program manager.

“The situation is dire,” she said, adding that she worries about a child or caretaker being killed. “Do we want to wait until it’s at that point?”