Blessing from ruins as adoption rules lift

Betsy Sathers had been anxiously waiting for days to hear any word on the 2-year-old twins she hopes to adopt from Haiti.

A rare bit of good news amid the devastating earthquake arrived this week when so-called "humanitarian parole" was granted for as many as 900 Haitian orphans in the process of being adopted by Americans.

The Department of Homeland Security's move late Monday released hundreds of American families from a state of legal limbo. The paroles will allow the children to temporarily enter the United States and go to adoptive families before the remaining paperwork for full legal entry is finished.

"Things aren't totally fixed -- yet," said Sathers, a Blaine resident. "The approval hasn't been granted yet, but now there's a chance it will be."

The possibility of not getting the children was nearly intolerable, a blow coming more than two years after Sathers lost her husband, Scott, in the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

"It was terrible to feel so helpless again," she said.

Prodded by several members of Congress, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the State Department announced last week that it was working with Homeland Security officials to speed pending cases in which the Haitian government has already issued a final adoption decree or granted custody to U.S. parents. Klobuchar's staff said Tuesday that 17 Minnesota families have been working with the senator's office to speed Haitian adoptions.

Besides adoptions that had already been approved by Haitian authorities, the United States also agreed to let in other children who had been matched up with American parents but had not gotten a final blessing from Haitian officials.

Homeland Security Department officials said they were walking a fine line, trying to let in bona fide orphans without opening the floodgates to all children who have been separated from their parents.

"We remain focused on family unification and must be vigilant not to separate children from relatives in Haiti who are still alive but displaced, or to unknowingly assist criminals who traffic in children in such desperate times," said Matthew Chandler, a department spokesman.

The adoption process from Haiti normally takes about three years, because of a lengthy process required under Haitian law. The Haitian government has had reason to be cautious; there are about 200 orphanages in Haiti, but U.N. officials say not all are legitimate.

Although Sathers, like other parents, still faces a tangle of paperwork before the children can come to the United States, she has been reassured that Ross and Alyse are safe.

She had just returned from Haiti for her third visit with the twins when the earthquake struck, its epicenter just a few miles from the orphanage.

Betsy and Scott Sathers had been married just 10 months when he died while driving across the 35W bridge on Aug. 1, 2007. "We had just started talking about becoming parents," she said.

"After a while, I thought I may not ever be a wife again, but I didn't want to give up the opportunity to be a mom," she said. "I prayed about it -- would it be OK for me to be a single mom? It turned out it was. And I've got twins!"

The New York Times contributed to this report. Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184