Another update from our coordinator today. 20 months this month in IBESR, with no update or status on where our adoption stands. There are a lot of people with my agency who are very frustrated and upset about this process. Now that the holidays are here, it's best to assume there will be no progression until after Christmas :(
Haiti Program Nov. 2015 Update
Dear Haiti Families,
Now that the holiday season is fast approaching, we would like to wish you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving and to let you know that we are thankful for the opportunity to be able to assist you with your adoption journey!
We also wanted to share with you that on Wed. Oct. 28, 2015, Interim Executive Director Angela Jackson and Tania Griasnow, Haiti Program Coordinator, participated in a NCFA Haiti conference call.
This conference call was designed to allow agencies with Haiti Programs the opportunity to share and compare their recent experiences and concerns. Some of the main topics of discussion were the processing of “simple” and” plenary” and referral matches. CAS was pleased to receive confirmation from our attorneys that all of our present cases are plenary cases and the “simple” versus “plenary” adoptions should not be an issue of concern. A few of the agencies stated that they had received referral matches, however, most of the agencies had not received recent referral matches. There was concern expressed by most of the agencies in regards to IBESR’s ability to process cases effectively and several shared the difficulty in completing some of the birth parent interviews. Some have experienced the issue of birthparents being brought in for interview, only to find that the person scheduled to interview them that day did not come in the office. Others have experienced different information being given by IBESR to their representatives than has been given to USCIS/DOS. All participants in conference call agree that they found it quite helpful and agreed to schedule such conferences on a quarterly basis.
Our attorneys Silvia and Daniel have informed us that they are able to visit with the IBSER on Mondays and Fridays. They make a concentrated effort to visit very Monday and Friday and let us know what information they were able to obtain. Haiti had elections on October 25. As an aftermath of the elections there were some demonstrations in the streets making it difficult in some instances to reach IBESR. We had a scheduled skype session with Daniel and Silvia on Nov. 11, 2015 to discuss the status of our Haiti cases with IBSER. We received notification from Daniel and Silvia on Nov. 10, that they were both quite ill with a tropical fever and would not be able to participate in the skype session at the scheduled time. They assured us that they would resume visitation to IBESR and would reschedule the skype session as soon as they were feeling better.
We hope that Daniel and Silvia will have a speedy recovery and will be able to provide us with much awaited updates on status of our Haiti cases.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Tania Griasnow
Haiti Program Coordinator
