Posted at the request of numerous transition PAPs:
Representatives from the Department of State and UCCIS will be providing a briefing to Congressional Offices on Monday, April 27. The briefing will be in Russell SOB Room 428A(Small Business Committee Room) from 11am-12:30pm. Subjects to be discussed include updates on Hague implementation and individual countries (specifically Nepal, Guatemala, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia & Liberia).
For more information they can call Rebecca Weichhand, CCAI Director of Policy at
202.544.8500
Click more for a CALL TO ACTION from transition PAPs on how to help
OUR GOAL:
1) Get all our members of Congress, Senators and Representatives, to the briefing. It isn’t that hard to do. We have a rep in govt office to serve our needs. Call their offices in DC.
2) Of course your rep should know your personal story. BUT we as a group and any family or friends who will help put the calls into your reps should be saying that we, the families needing to go thru CNA as transition cases (assuming all are abandonments now) are in need of help from the US government and the Hague.
3) The CNA is overburdened and understaffed, causing the children stuck in this transition to linger. The law was passed in Guatemala with US and Hague backing. The US and Hague need to step up and help the Guatemalan authorities to get through this and allow these children to join permanent families.
5) The US needs to have a point person or team in country to ensure these cases complete quickly. DOS need to assign a task force to do so. (This was done in Cambodia!)
Having worked on Capitol Hill, I can tell you that calls to your Congress person's office WILL help here. If the office gets calls from lots of constituents that they want someone at the briefing, the office will send someone. And action can happen from that.
What would be helpful: call your Congress person's office (go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov to find contact info for your Senators and Reps). Ask them who works on international adoption issues for your Senator /Rep. Then ask to leave a message for that person that you want them to go to the briefing on Monday. Tell them you'll send them an email with more info (ask for email address).
Follow up with an email telling them your thoughts on the issue (personal story, if you are in process) and how you want them to act. Keep it brief and to the point.
You can also do this by FAX.
I think the rest of us should contact them too (those of us who have already brought our children home---many of them older and having a tougher time adjusting due to being older) and tell the same info as stated above and how our person experiences speaks to the fact that these remaining children need to come home ASAP so that they don't suffer even more than our children did (due to transitioning as older children).
Is there anything else we can do?
Peace,
Lizzie
I heard about this meeting too late to contact any congressmen, but since I am in the process of adopting 3 children from Guatemala, and am one of the "grandfathered" cases, I am very interested in the outcome, as I have heard no news of my children from either the facilitator or adoption agency in over a year. Its so frustrating knowing that as time passes it will be harder and harder for the children to bond to new parents, and I worry how they are being taken care of. I have not even been allowed to meet them yet because their DNA tests were not done yet, I was told. I can't help but feel that I may have been given false hope of adopting these kids, and may have just paid thousands of dollars from taking out a second mortgage on my house, all for nothing.
Posted by: pattifrompeds at April 28, 2009 01:29 AM