Posted on 08/11/2009 6:45:35 AM PDT by La Lydia
The little girl wouldn't let go...It didn't matter that she had only met him 12 days earlier...What mattered was that he had held her and that he was going to bring her home, to a quiet cul-de-sac in Northern Virginia, where the shy 4-year-old would live with him, his wife and the 6-year-old boy they had adopted...
"Papa, don't go!" she screamed in Cantonese after Scruggs tried to hand her over to the foster family that would care for her until he could return...Finally Scruggs slipped out the door, a day after his wife, Candace Litchford, had made the same wrenching journey back home to Alexandria.
Instead of starting life with her new family in the United States, Harper remains in China, the visa she needs because of federal regulations aimed at limiting the number of immigrants entering the country with tuberculosis...
In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new tuberculosis testing and treatment rules for immigrants older than 2. It applies to all, foreign children adopted by U.S. citizens, and has outraged adoption organizations. Advocates said the rules will be particularly problematic for adoptions from Ethiopia and China...
The requirements (focus) on countries with high rates of TB and high rates of immigration to the United States, said Katrin Kohl, deputy director of global migration and quarantine for the CDC.
The issue of children was "heavily debated" as experts worked on the regulations, which are part of federal immigration law.
Harper's parents said they understand the CDC's role in controlling tuberculosis, especially the multi-drug-resistant strains that have been a particular concern...But they said that the CDC's policy is too sweeping when it comes to children, who do not pose the same risk of transmission as adults...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My DH and I have been where these people are - We had 2 grown Bio kids when we adopted a 14 month little girl from China. She was healthy. We went back in 2006 for a two year old girl who was on our agencies Special Needs list; her only SN was listed was Ptosis (droopey eyelids). We contacted the appropriate medical specialists and was told all was well, plastic surgery would repair the eyelids with no problem. We get to China. Long story short - she had a terminal condition of Neurofibromatosis - at 2 her condition was already extremely active, which is rare. They suspected the tumors were already in her brain based on her cognitive skills and an MRI. It was the worst experience of our lives. My DH was so upset I thought he was going to have a coronary right there. We were referred another child - a little boy that was 34 months - his SN was a hernia. Today he is healthy and doing well but there is not a day that goes by that we don’t think of that little girl and wonder about her survival.
What is a “DH”? Dear Husband??
Yes....Dear Husband.
Meanwhile, we have thousands upon thousands of Illegal invader hordes riddled with tuberculosis and just about every other communicable horror you can imagine streaming unchecked across our Southern border. Our tax dollars at work folks.
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