Help Haitian Adoptees Immediately to Integrate Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5283, the Help HAITI Act of 2010, was introduced by Representative JEFF FORTENBERRY and is an important bill to help us finish the job we undertook when we rescued just over 1,200 Haitian orphans immediately after the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12 of this year.

Six months after the earthquake, it is easy to forget how terrible this tragedy was. More than 220,000 people were killed and over 300,000 were injured. Over 300,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and more than 1,300 schools and 50 health centers were reduced to rubble.

At least 1.5 million people were directly affected by the quake. In terms of human and economic impact, it's the worst natural disaster ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.

In response to this disaster, I am proud that our country responded quickly and in many different ways. Many know about the search and recovery efforts, the dissemination of food and water, the private donations totaling more than $1.3 billion, the thousands of military, civilian, and medical personnel that went to Haiti to provide critical care and save lives, but there are other ways that our country provided humanitarian assistance.

Soon after the earthquake hit, the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, otherwise known as USCIS, took several steps to provide critical assistance to vulnerable populations in Haiti. This included creating a humanitarian parole policy for the immediate evacuation of Haitian orphans who had been adopted or were in the process of being adopted by U.S. citizens.

These children had been previously identified as being available for intercountry adoptions, so they were not at risk of being separated from their families during the chaos that followed the earthquake. Now in the United States with their adoptive or prospective adoptive American parents, these children need one more bit of assistance from us so they can live lives like Americans.

Had the earthquake not hit and disrupted the adoption processes in Haiti, each of these children would have entered the country as U.S. citizens under current immigration law. But because of the current emergency procedures that were 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. Some are even in danger of aging out before they can get their residency, which would make them ineligible for legal status in this country.

H.R. 5283 would simply treat these children as if the earthquake had not happened and they had come to the U.S. under normal procedures.

Specifically, the bill would allow an adoptive parent or legal guardian in the United States to apply for permanent residency on behalf of one of the 1,200 Haitian orphans brought to the U.S. under the USCIS parole policy announced on January 18 and terminated on April 15 of this year. This is the least we can do to help the orphans we rescued and the U.S. citizen parents who have adopted or are seeking to adopt them.

I commend Representative JEFF FORTENBERRY for introducing this bill and committee Ranking Member LAMAR SMITH for his support on this measure.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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