Community advocates appeal to Florida to halt plan to send U.S. citizen baby to Haiti
.JPG "A child playfully pulls another child with a rope at the Hugo Chavez public square, which has been transformed into a refuge for families forced to leave their homes due to clashes between armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022.")
Florida state Rep. Dotie Joseph is urging the state’s child welfare agency to keep a 9-month-old U.S.-born baby in South Florida rather than pursue its decision to ship him to Haiti — at least until all proceedings are concluded to determine the baby’s “best interest” for placement.
“Baby Ector is an American citizen, and as such is entitled to due process under the law,” Joseph wrote Thursday to Florida Department of Children & Families Secretary Shevaun Harris.
Her appeal is being joined by Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, which promotes early childhood initiatives. Sant La has Issued an “SOS for Baby Ector!” The center said that while it encourages family reunification, it is important to consider the chaotic conditions currently gripping Haiti.
The boy’s grandmother lives in a rural part of Haiti.
READ MORE: He’s 9 months old and a U.S. citizen. Why does Florida DCF want to send him to Haiti?
“In the case of Baby Ector, we strongly object to the decision to send him to a country embroiled in economic and socio-political crises. The U.S. Embassy in Haiti has ordered the evacuation of all U.S. staff members’ children and families, as well as American citizens,” Sant La said. “They are also being warned not to travel to Haiti due to the ongoing social unrest, gang violence, kidnappings, hospital closures, and food, fuel and drinking water shortages.”
Miami Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who has pushed for stopping all deportations to Haiti due to the dire conditions there, also joined in the effort to block Ector’s transfer to Haiti.
The “DCF and the Broward Circuit Court’s decision to send Baby Ector to a place deemed unsafe and untenable by the State Department for Americans to travel is ludicrous!” she told the Miami Herald on Friday.
“I strongly urge the court to reconsider its decision and let Baby Ector stay in the U.S.,” Wilson said in a statement. “Wherever he’s placed in Broward County, within the foster care system, or with foster parents, it is much better than the options he is offered in Haiti.”
Wilson’s, Sant La’s and Joseph’s appeals come five days after the Miami Herald reported that Ector was born in Broward County to a mother with mental health issues and a father not involved in his care. By birthright, he is an American citizen. But in August, Broward Circuit Judge Jose Izquierdo ruled that the child should be removed from the home of his foster parents, Tamara and Gerald Simmons, and sent to live with his maternal grandmother. The grandmother lives in a mountainous region outside of gang-plagued Port-au-Prince, has no steady income and had not made a claim for the child in Florida courts.
DCF, through its contractor ChildNet, sent a social worker to Haiti to seek out the grandmother and do a home study as part of its legal effort to place Ector with her rather than to allow him to be adopted after terminating the parental rights of his mother. DCF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The mother, who suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia, had previously lost custody of three of Ector’s siblings. Those children, who are in contact with each other, were allowed to be adopted. The inconsistency in treatment between Ector and his siblings, and fears for his safety in Haiti amid its worsening humanitarian and security crisis, led the Simmonses to file a federal lawsuit to block his removal. The Broward couple have taken care of Ector almost since his birth and want to adopt him.
In a letter to DCF, Joseph, who is a lawyer, said Florida law is “clear” about what factors should be considered for a “best interest determination for placement” of a child, and when “change in physical custody” is appropriate, and only to a placement that is “safe and stable.”
“The current situation in Haiti is currently neither safe nor stable — an unfortunate fact that is well documented with every major publicly available source,” wrote Joseph, who was born in Haiti and raised in Miami. Her state House district includes parts of Miami, unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Biscayne Park, El Portal and Miami Shores.
Joseph noted that she is not advocating “for this or any child to be automatically offered up for adoption when Haiti or any other country facing troubles is at play.” But she urged the child welfare agency to consider the dire situation in Haiti compared to “his current seemingly safe stable placement.”
Violent armed gangs are regularly blocking roads and are cutting off the supply of fuel and water in the country, Joseph noted. Schools have not been able to open for the school year and hospitals are inaccessible.
“There is a deadly cholera outbreak, and a crisis-level food shortage,” Joseph wrote. “With no steady income or running water, the baby’s grandmother’s ability to provide a ‘safe and stable’ [environment] should be fully examined before sending him away.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 10:06 AM.
