Posted on 02/04/2010 12:05:11 PM PST by OldDeckHand
Had they not been Christians, it would still be a crime.
I am all for helping people when disaster strikes, but something about taking the children, their children, out of the country strikes me as ...well wrong.
Reverse scenario thinking would be like if foreign help came during the Katrina fiasco and took all the children to ...say Canada or Mexico.
Poor animals. Sad. They just want a hand out and total support and will scream racism.
People trying to bring Haitains to America should go to jail. We have too many and they are bankrupting FL.
WOW That information does put the story into a slightly different perspective.
It’s not a huge problem that these children had parents, because they were actually already in an orphanage at the time that the Baptists attempted to move them to another orphanagents, and had been placed there by their pare. It is quite common for parents who cannot feed or care for their children in Haiti to turn them over to orphanages, even though at least one of the parents is still alive.
It used to be common in the US, too. Sometimes the parents would take their kids out of the orphanages if their situations improved, other times the children either grew up there or were adopted by other people. Look up “orphan trains” for an interesting story on the settlement of the West, btw.
The woman in charge of this group sounds a bit flaky, but there is absolutely no indication that the group or even she herself had any criminal intentions with these children. And the fact that the US didn’t even send a representative to their hearing is shocking and disgusting.
When they were arrested, their phones were confiscated, and the only way we even know about this is that a couple of them got out phone calls before their phones were taken away.
This whole thing stinks, and is a politically motivated attack, IMHO. Haiti is up to its eyeballs in corruption and crime involving US relief efforts, and this is its way of distracting from this fact.
Interesting.
Thanks for the heads up.
Other commenters on this thread would be best served to read the info at the link you provided.
I felt there was something very fishy about this the minute I heard it.
I'm willing to bet that the professional child trafficers know who to bribe and are operating a boom business down there right now.
The orphanage in DR was affiliated with the destroyed one in Haiti. That’s why they were taking them there.
Most likely they were just trying to help get children out of that hell-hole to a safer place. When their paperwork did not fit the “new rules” they decided to ignore the red tape and try to help the kids regardless.
Too bad common sense no longer exists among governments. Red tape has destroyed many a good effort.
Justice.
But more reports surfaced Wednesday that the group was warned away from its plan. Carlos Castillo, the Dominican Republic’s consul general in Port-au-Prince, said in an interview that he met with the group’s leader, Laura Silsby, on Friday at the consulate in the Haitian capital and told her she lacked the documents to transport children.
She told Mr. Castillo she had applied to Dominican authorities for a permit to cross the border, he said. But Mr. Castillo checked and found no such application. “I told her I could authenticate Haitian documents but she had no Haitian documents of any sort,” said Mr. Castillo. “She told me she would try to reach the border in order to cross. I told her not to do that without the necessary documents because she could be accused of trafficking children.”
Mr. Castillo said that at the border Ms. Silsby showed Haitian authorities his business card and said he had authorized her to cross. Border authorities called him and he denied it
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704259304575043691704446642.html?mod=fox_australian
It disturbed me when I heard some of the kids in question had living parents. The parents & kids were being promised that the kids would be given a ‘better life’. If you’re going to help orphans, the kids should REALLY be orphans - something doesn’t add up here.
Thanks. Silsby sounds pretty dishonest, in addition to being apparently incredibly stupid.
I don’t care what her intentions were. There’s nothing good about perpetrating fraud, and lying, to remove so called ‘orphan’ children from their living parents.
I've been upset about this case because our country is pouring it's heart, hard work and $$$ into this terrible tragedy and I have been upset that they arrested missionaries....but it seems there maybe something "off" about the leader of this group....I hope if it's true about her that the others are innocent and will be found innocent.
She was engaged in an attempt to set up a very profitable adoption business, with no more regard for the law than she’s had in any of her prior business/financial dealings. If she’d gotten these kids out of the country, they would have been without any documentation whatsoever, and her cockamamie scheme would have fallen apart and left the kids vulnerable to whoever came along when Silsby and her cronies walked away. The fact that she wasn’t specifically intending to sell them into prostitution or slavery is not particular relevant — she was planning (to use the term very loosely) to use them to make a profit, in a way that was likely to result in many of them ending up in sexual or other slavery.
Look at the bunch of people she had with her. Either they were aware this was a profit-making scheme by a woman with a history of shady dealings and that the law was being skirted, or they didn’t bother to investigate who she was and what she was really doing, before committing their time and money to run off to the Dominican Republic and Haiti to help her take possession of a busload of children. How thoroughly do you suppose they were going to investigate prospective adopters and orphanage workers, if they didn’t know Silsby was a scam artist with a pile of outstanding judgement against her in the same state where most of them live?
One thing I’ve been wondering about but haven’t seen any info on yet, is where the heck are the 3 children of her own that she reportedly has? Her ex-husband had no comment about anything when contacted by media, and I can’t blame him. But I do think it’s odd that, with the repeated of mentions of her co-arrestee Charisa Coulter being her “live-in nanny”, none of the many people who have talked to the press about what they know (or think they know) about Silsby has mentioned her children. You’d think her defenders at the churches would at least be saying stuff like what a devoted mother she is, great with children, etc. Given that she’s 40 years old and reportedly a college graduate, if she has 3 children, it’s very doubtful than more than one could be old enough to be living independently.
Clinton terms Haiti child smuggling case 'unfortunate'
"Trafficking of human beings, particularly of children is a problem across the world," Clinton said after holding talks in Washington on Wednesday about the problem of trafficking in persons worldwide.
"The Haitian nation acted to protect children who were being removed from their country without appropriate documentation," the chief US diplomat said.
"It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Clinton said.The U.S. taking sides with Haiti versus Americans... oh, excuse me, CHRISTIAN Americans.... no surprise but still chilling.
Reverse scenario thinking would be like if foreign help came during the Katrina fiasco and took all the children to ...say Canada or Mexico.
That is my thought also. Why would they be taking them out of the country?
Shepherd Smith was sounding almost gleeful yesterday when relating their imprisonment....he toned it down a bit, saying they might have had good intentions....
..but I think he was ready to hang them, he was so excited.
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