Posted on 12/10/2017 5:08:23 PM PST by Elderberry
Sven sounds like he has a background as an immigrations officer and may have been able to access some records. He points to all the anomalies, and it’s understandable that adoptions make it a more complicated maze.
Sure does. I just hope he was never identified.
About Sven:
“In brief, his contention was that ANY minors who came under the jurisdiction of the INS were issued with Connecticut SS numbers. “
Somehow, that does not sound right.
Between 1960-62 over 14,000 children were airlifted by the Red Cross as unaccompanied minors from Cuba. Most were flown to Florida City or Orlando, Florida. Their parents gave their children up to freedom rather than have the communist state rescind their parental authority and assert control. Many never saw their Cuban parents again.
Operation Pedro Pan was the largest recorded exodus of Unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere. Some of the children were united with distant relatives and others were adopted into Catholic homes through Catholic Charities. It would be interesting to see if these unaccompanied minors were assigned Connecticut SS numbers.
Off topic, but here is a personal account that brings home the sacrifice parents made to escape the Marxists-Lenin indoctrination that swallowed up Cuba
María del Carmen’s Story:
I vividly remember “la despedida”(the farewell). We had come from our hometown, Santa Clara, and were staying in our grandmother’s home. We said goodbye to Abuela (my grandmother) and las tias (my aunts) inside. My sister Isa and I left with our mother and as we closed the door, I wondered if I would ever again see the piece of my heart that I was leaving behind that door; unfortunately I never did. Our father was waiting for us outside. He would not go into his mother’s home because of political differences with his siblings. Some of them thought that communism would mean the end of poverty and hunger for the world’s masses while my father and the others knew that it meant the end of personal freedom with equality of misery for all.
Only one parent would be allowed to go with us to the airport, we had agreed that it would be our mother, so we kissed and hugged Papi in the sidewalk and all three of us got into the cab that he had there, waiting for us. We looked through the rear window as our father’s figure diminished with the growing distance until finally disappearing from sight, tears rolling down our cheeks just as now or whenever I think of that moment.
When we got to the airport, our mother was informed that she would not be allowed to go with us into “la pecera” so we said our most stoic “adios Mami” and proceeded towards the next step of our journey. The lady that checked our bags decided that my leather bag was “materia prima Cubana” and that it belonged to Cuba, not to me, therefore I could not take it out of the country. She caressed the leather bag as she placed it, full of all its contents, in the counter behind her.
She kept looking at me all the while expecting some kind of protestation but our parents had prepared us well for such situations, besides, losing a bag with the three garments that I would have been allowed to take out of Cuba paled in comparison to leaving behind a loving family and adoring parents. We held each other’s hands and walked away as if nothing had happened.
Once in our seats at the plane we looked out the window and saw a solitary figure standing in the balcony of the airport waving a white handkerchief in the air. The emotion was overwhelming when we realized that it was Mami, but we were still afraid that she could see us if we cried. It was only after the plane took off that we felt safe from the communists or from saddening our broken parents any further....[snip]
I fell in love with Miami at first sight. I was so impressed with the grid of straight streets and canals that I felt that somehow everything would be OK in spite of the long trip to Camp Matecumbe through the darkening country roads. I was further relieved to find out that only the boys would stay there, the girls would proceed to another place that was not as dark.
When we arrived at Florida City, there was a multitude of children pressing against the chain link fence to greet the new arrivals. My sister and I were housed in the first house as you entered the camp. The girls there called us “hermanitas del exilio”, and when they found out that I had arrived without anything, they started going through their few belongings to find things that they could share with me.
Two months after our arrival, the October [Missile] Crisis ensued. We found ourselves on opposite sides, from our parents, of what appeared to be an imminent nuclear war between our two countries. One day on a field trip to Flamingo Park, while riding and singing in the bus, as we always did, we saw the rockets readied and pointing towards Cuba. Our singing, of course, turned into crying and someone made the wise decision to return us to the camp. After the October Crisis, flights to Cuba were suspended and we found ourselves STRANDED from our parents, with dim chances of reunification.
I will always be grateful to the US Government, the Catholic Welfare Bureau, The people who worked behind the scenes to make this operation possible, at great personal peril, and the people that worked in the camps and who were always trying to make them better places for us to live in....[snip}
So much effort went into keeping us happy and occupied that we felt like normal kids during the day. It was at night that our thoughts would turn to our parents and whether they were safe and if we would ever see them again. You could always hear girls crying in the silence of the night.
For three years we lived as a family in the camp in Florida City. In 1965 our parents managed to come via Mexico. Miami has been our beloved home ever since. I graduated from Miami High, Miami Dade, and the University of Miami. [snip]
Read more here: http://pubsys.miamiherald.com/cgi-bin/pedropan/profile/10393/story/#storylink=cpy
That's the beauty of communism, isn't it? That a woman can rob a child of her possessions and feel justified that it's for the good of the party...
US Citizenship & Immigration Services
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/field-offices/connecticut-hartford-field-office
Would they tell you?
Catholic Social Services of Connecticut was one of two contractors with HHS to take temporary custody of abandoned child refugees.
So CSS of Connecticut acted as intermediary?
pardon my aussie ignorance, but by HHS does Sven mean:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services
bold emphasis mine
FYI
http://svenmagnussen.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/original-long-form-birth-certificate.html
http://svenmagnussen.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/complete-index-of-articles-by-sven.html
HHS = Health & Human Services.
It unfathomable that the Prince of Indonesia was shipped out as an abandoned child refugee to the States. Assuming he came to the West Coast, California would have been the most likely processing point of entry, not Connecticut.
However:
US Citizenship & Immigration Services
are shown in Connecticut
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/find-uscis-office/field-offices/connecticut-hartford-field-office
There’s no way I can confirm, but it seems to follow.
Postscript:
I’m under the impression he landed in Honolulu. The apparent intention was that his ‘grandparents’ would collect him.
http://svenmagnussen.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/barack-hussein-obama-ii-aka-barry.html
I think he qualified:
“Unaccompanied minors with foreign nationality arriving at a Port of Entry in the United States do not clear customs because of Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy on Human Trafficking...”
Thanks for the links.
Prior to 1972, aliens weren’t required to have a SSN assigned.
A SSN could be requested that was sent to a mailing address that was not the same as the primary address.
If he flew under the radar as a foreign student, he could have not requested a number until a much later date, even into his twenties. This would coincide with lack of a legit registration for selective service. I believe those males registered with SS at birth get the SSR letter 6 months prior to the 18th birthday.
1972 Legislation authorizes SSA to assign SSNs to all legally admitted noncitizens at entry and to anyone receiving or applying for a federal benefit.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n2/v69n2p55.html
What might have been the rules regarding an unaccompanied minor arriving in Hawaii - who says I’ve come to stay with my grandparents, but has no documentation that shows he is related to the people who have come to collect him?
postscript:
It occurs to me that I need to tell you, there’s no way I can verify anything Sven has written, neither should I try to. This is purely material you can peruse and reach your own conclusions.
I’m not sure they put unaccompanied minors on international flights bound for the USA. Maybe the airlines had paid handlers back then. There’s also the possibility that someone else (unknown) aboard the flight personally traveled and signed for him. If he had an Indonesian passport and a note that he was going on a holiday to Hawaii to visit grandparents, I guess they would let him enter if some normal looking old people showed to greet him.
Was child trafficking even on the radar back then? Idk. It just does not seem to be the trigger for a fresh CT social security number.
I should contact a Pedro Pan unaccompanied minors and see if those 14,000 have CT SSN’s. I’m predicting they were not assigned any SS numbers.
The bottom line is that lots of people did not utilize the SSN until working age. Schools did not demand it and it was not tied to health insurance back in those days. Most people in his age bracket had no idea what the number was until they worked.
Understood. But some of what Sven writes suggests that the Dunhams were compensated by the government for taking care of the child. Even if that was for a short period, he would have needed a Social Security number, I imagine. Perhaps it’s a moot point, you’ll never find it because heaven knows what name it’s under.
Your 14,000 Pedro Pan unaccompanied minors surely would have been issued SS numbers if they were to receive benefits. I think...
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