He's 9 months old and a U.S. citizen. Why does Florida DCF want to send him to Haiti?
Miami Herald via Yahoo NewsUrged on by the Florida Department of Children & Families, a circuit court judge has ruled that 9-months old Ector — by birthright an American citizen — should be sent to Haiti to be with his maternal grandmother, who lives in a mountainous region and has no steady income. The Florida foster family that has raised him since he was a week old fears for his safety in a country torn by kidnapping gangs and catastrophic hunger and wants to adopt him. They are suing to keep him here in their care.
Haiti is a country on the verge of collapse. Armed gangs regularly block roads and close down hospitals and schools and an ongoing gang blockade is making fuel and drinking water scarce, leading to a deadly cholera outbreak and food shortages. The State Department has warned U.S. citizens not to go, and said those living there should depart Haiti now in light of the current security and health situation and infrastructure challenges.
“He was born here. This is his birthright,” Simmons said, adding that the child is formula fed. “He has the right to clean water, and he has the right to not starve.”
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This is a very common situation, including the outrage of Americans that we would allow a child to be sent to family in an underdeveloped nation and denied all our advantages.
It might help those who are bothered to remember that people in other nations, including ones with much lower standards of living, often strongly disapprove of various elements of our culture and the way we raise our children here and feel their ways are much better. Many who come here to work leave their children with relatives so they will be raised in their own culture. Over the years, I’ve met many who felt that way.
Note that this baby’s grandmother did not say oh thank goodness on learning than a loving American couple wanted to keep her grandson, so presumably she doesn’t believe her circumstances are as dire as some might imagine.
I don’t believe strangers with no involvement and no knowledge of the situation and people involved should assume their opinions are better those of the professionals who do, and of the family. As I said I have no opinion as to what the better disposition would probably be, because I think that would be highly irresponsible, arrogant and disrespectful, to put it mildly. First do no harm.
Btw, we know that many of the people who took children kidnapped at the border with the intention of adopting them themselves or out to American families thought they were doing them a wonderful favor. Many of their families were dreadfully poor and in worse position than a family with a home and community in Haiti. The lack of American citizenship to base their imagined rights to take the children on was not the reason that was nevertheless dreadfully wrong, to the point of evil. I imagine you agree that sincerity and genuine concern for the well-being of the children are no excuse for them.
The right of families to their children is close to sacred both secularly and religiously in virtually all cultures. The exception is authoritarian states that take children for various reasons, elevating the power of the authorities over the nonexistent rights of the people involved. The kidnapping of the children at the border was a state sanctioned authoritarian action by tRump’s government. We don’t do that, and we don’t use American citizenship as an excuse to do it. There have to be compelling reasons for the child.
