Refusing to help kids here while trolling for kids abroad

Children in Nogales, AZ facility

About 40,000 accompanied minors and young children with their mothers from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have crossed our southern borders illegally since October. Another 12,000 have come from Mexico. These children and their mothers, hoping to escape the violence and poverty back home, have been herded into warehouse-like accommodations awaiting reviews by governments officials. They are confronted by angry mobs, demanding they leave immediately.

One might think that the self-styled child savers, those eager to bring poor children from poor countries to the U.S. for adoption, would be bending over backwards to help these would-be immigrants. One would be wrong.
The champions of intercountry adoption, Sen. Mary Landrieu and Harvard Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, are nowhere in sight now that the tired, poor huddled masses of children yearning to breathe free are on our shores.

CHARITY ENDS AT HOME

Jane

Adoptive mother Sen Landrieu is the chief sponsor of the Children in Families First Act of 2013 (CHIFF) which would condition aid to poor countries on making their children available for adoption. This appears to be a response to the fact that adoptions from other countries to the United States have dropped from just over 23,000 in 2004 to approximately 7,000 in 2013,  largely due to the closing of adoptions in countries where rampant corruption was the grease that allowed the adoptions, such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.* CHIFF is designed to stem the tide and reverse these numbers. The CHIFF Working Group Executive Committee includes the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, the Joint Council for International Children's Services (an umbrella organization for adoption agencies), as well as intercountrty adoption zealots such as Both Ends Burning, the Saddleback Church, and, of course, adoptive mother Elizabeth Bartholt's Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School.  CHIFF opponents include some intercountry adoptees and adoptive parents.


Now that unaccompanied children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are here, it's clear that while the "child savers" behind CHIFF want to change laws to make it easier to bring children here, they have no interest in devising laws to allow children who are here to stay. These sanctimonious do-gooders are not rushing to the borders to help these children stacked up like logs in warehouses. Of course there's no money in doing so for the billion-dollar adoption industry. Noteworthy is that opponents of immigration argue that those who break our laws to come here should not be allowed to stay, but are silent about illegal activities abroad that bring thousands of children here for adoption. The child savers' end game is usually adoption, and the kids coming here are most likely not adoptable. Not only are they too old to be attractive to those willing to pay $35,000 plus for a foreign infant or toddler, their parents have not surrendered their parental rights.**

NEITHER ADOPTION NOR IMMIGRATION IS THE ANSWER 
The Obama administration has promised to "stem the tide" of accompanied minors while promising "to do right" by these children. It is requesting Congress to appropriate almost $3.7 billion for increased border security, care of unaccompanied minors, and immigration judges. It is also requesting $300 million in aid to Central American countries for controlling their borders and addressing economic and security concerns that may be driving the migration. It is anticipated that most of these immigrants will be returned to their countries.

Congressional leaders have not committed to any course of action whether increased funding or amending immigration laws to allow these "wretched refuse" to remain here. None of the senators and representatives who are pushing for CHIFF have stepped forward on behalf of these children. I suspect that Sen. Landrieu is just thankful that the Department of Homeland Security hasn't shipped them to Louisiana to join the poor children there in foster care. Embracing these foreign children would be a disaster to her re-election campaign.

We at FMF recognize that the U.S. cannot absorb large numbers of poor families in a short period of time. Neither immigration nor adoption can reduce violence and poverty in foreign lands. Those wanting to help--evangelicals, Harvard professors, U.S. Congresspeople, the Obama administration, anyone must work with governments in poor countries to improve conditions there.--jane
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*Now that these and other countries have curtailed adoptions, the industry has turned to Africa for children and, of course, corruption soon followed. According to a recent ABC news report, a Georgia adoption agency, One World Adoptions, closed down after state officials suspended its license for ninety days. The state accused the agency of failing to provide documentation that an Ethiopian child was eligible for adoption, providing a prospective adoptive parent with a document which may have contained false information, and forwarding a letter from an attorney to a prospective adoptive family asking for $2,000 to "'motivate public officials to act.'" Georgia Adoption Agency Closing After Suspension

** Some individuals have shown an interest in adopting these children and have contacted Texas adoption agencies according to Abrazo Adoption Associates of San Antonio. Abrazo is encouraging these individuals to consider American children in foster care. There Are No "Alien Children."

Children In Families First
U.S. will 'stem the tide' of illegal immigration, official says 

FROM FMF:
Senate bill encourages more international adoption
Encouraging intercountry adoptions with hard cash

BOOKS
Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth  (ABOVE)
By Erin Segal
"Over the last decade, nearly 200,000 children have been adopted into the United States, 25,000 of whom came from Guatemala. Finding Fernanda, a dramatic true story paired with investigative reporting, tells the side-by-side tales of an American woman who adopted a two-year-old girl from Guatemala and the birth mother whose two children were stolen from her. Each woman gradually comes to realize her role in what was one of Guatemala’s most profitable is an overdue, unprecedented look at adoption corruption—and a poignant, riveting human story about the power of hope, faith, and determination."--Amazon

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
by Kathryn Joyce

“This intricate investigation of adoption ethics and religion is an incisive, evenhanded corrective to the view of child adoption as benign and salvific….Grim but now downbeat, Joyce’s reporting also indicates signs of hope for reform….This exemplary study deserves a wide audience among all readers involved with adoption, from policymakers to prospective adoptive families.”-Library Journal 

THANK YOU ALL FOR ORDERING ANYTHING THROUGH FMF--WHETHER IT IS FROM SITE  YOU SEARCHED A WEEK AGO AND APPEARS ON THE SIDE OR THROUGH AMAZON. WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT. 

Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal
by Aviva Chomsky
“Professional in her scholarship, Chomsky has written a book that will be relevant to those who do not share her position as well as to those who do.”—Publishers Weekly
“Dares to call the [immigration] problem ‘manufactured,’ one that could be solved with the stroke of a pen.”
—Ms. Magazine

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"