Carol and Dave Plamann counted their blessings last week when the two young sons they’ve adopted from Haiti stepped off a plane in Miami, safe at last.
Patrick and Bridget Menke still have only a photo of Roxanne, the 6-year-old Haitian girl they’re in the midst of adopting. “When the quake happened, the bottom fell out of everything,” Bridget Menke said.
The Plamanns and Menkes embody the anguish and vexing difficulties that come with trying to navigate a dense labyrinth of paperwork and the vast bureaucratic breakdown after the earthquake that has shattered Haiti.
They are among about 20 families being assisted by the office of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who met with them Saturday at his St. Paul office.
“You have my pledge to do anything I can to help you,” Franken told both couples. “I’m just sorry we can’t do it faster.”
“Life has just stood still,” Bridget Menke told him. “She’s my daughter.”
Staff workers in the offices of Franken and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., are among several across the country attempting to help as many as 900 families in the process of adopting Haitian orphans.
This month, the Department of Homeland Security’s move released many of those adoptive parents from a state of legal limbo. It issued “humanitarian paroles” that will allow the children to enter the United States temporarily and go to adoptive families before the remaining paperwork for full legal entry is finished.
But the paperwork hurdle remains high in cases such as the Menkes, and “the Haitian government has put the brakes on things,” said Greg Buhr, Franken’s constituent services director.
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During the past decade, about 2,500 Haitian children have been adopted by American families. Now, even though the government of the island nation has been nearly paralyzed by the chaos produced by the quake, officials have said they have no intention of opening the door to the mass adoption of newly orphaned children.
“The Haitian government is very clear on this,” Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lessgue told CNN. “We are facilitating all of the adoption applications already submitted. Other than those, no child will be leaving the country for adoption.”
The Plamanns, of Oak Grove, brought Vince, 7, and Evans, 2, to Saturday’s meeting, just days after the boys arrived in the United States.
“We were lucky because we were further along in the process,” Carol Plamann said. “We’ve talked to the sisters [who operate the orphanage] and they say things are going to real dire real fast.”
As the meeting wrapped up, Franken admired recent photos of Roxanne. “If she’s still smiling after that catastrophe, it’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s just good to know she’s healthy.”
“As far as we know,” Bridget Menke added.
