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U.S. Baptists arrested in Haitian orphan incident
One News Now (AP) ^ | 1/31/2010 | Frank Bajak

Posted on 01/31/2010 10:00:45 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT

A group of 10 American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying to take 33 children out of Haiti.

The church group, most of them from Idaho, allegedly lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.

...

Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, that they were converting into an orphanage, Silsby told the AP.

...

Silsby said the group, including members from Texas and Kansas, only had the best of intentions and paid no money for the children, whom she said they obtained from well-known Haitian pastor Jean Sanbil of the Sharing Jesus Ministries.

Silsby, 40, of Boise, Idaho, was asked if she didn't consider it naive to cross the border without adoption papers at a time when Haitians are so concerned about child trafficking. "By no means are we any part of that. That's exactly what we are trying to combat," she said.

...

"There are allegations of child trafficking and that really couldn't be farther from the truth," he added. The children "were going to get the medical attention they needed. They were going to get the clothes and the food and the love they need to be healthy and to start recovering from the tragedy that just happened."

...

Silsby said they had documents from the Dominican government, but did not seek any paperwork from the Haitian authorities before taking the children to the border.

(Excerpt) Read more at onenewsnow.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: baptist; haiti; laurasilsby; orphan
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This is a shame. These orphans weren't coming to the U.S., just being moved next door. Haiti is a mess right now, and while I do believe there is a serious problem with children being taken from their families or sold away, there is also a need to find safe places for the children while the country is stabilized.

Religious organizations stand at the forefront of the effort, and putting them jail doesn't seem like a good way to help the children.

1 posted on 01/31/2010 10:00:45 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT

Not next door, but across an international border.

And while they are likely doing Good Works, they must have documentation for those babies.

Hopefully, the situation can be cleared up and the “US Baptists” and the orphans will soon be on their way to the US for adoption.


2 posted on 01/31/2010 10:08:31 PM PST by trumandogz (The Democrats are driving us to Socialism at 100 MPH -The GOP is driving us to Socialism at 97.5 MPH)
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To: CharlesWayneCT

This is so ridiculous. They should be given the Nobel for helping those kids.


3 posted on 01/31/2010 10:15:23 PM PST by kingpins10
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To: trumandogz

Let U.S Baptists pay for all the Haitians bankrupting Florida or the liberal “American” Catholic church brining in Somalis or pandering over illegal aliens. I think the Mormons are doing the same thing. Let the churches pay for all the illegals. BS.

Maybe they should worry about American children and families sufferings instead of importing more poor.

As Haitian-America Peggy Joseph said at the Obama rally in FL 2008

“Obama is gonna pay my mortgage and put gas in my car.”


4 posted on 01/31/2010 10:19:48 PM PST by Frantzie (TV - sending Americans towards Islamic serfdom - Cancel TV service NOW)
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To: CharlesWayneCT
Silsby said they had documents from the Dominican government, but did not seek any paperwork from the Haitian authorities before taking the children to the border.

WTF??? Lock 'em up and throw away the key. This guy is full of sh!t. Sure, he and his helpers just had no idea it would be any problem to roll into Haiti, grab a bunch of kids with ZERO authorization or documentation from the Haitian government, and take them out of the country. < /s>

The sad thing is, I'm sure at least some of the people in this group really thought they were helping a legitimate operation, and trusted organizers who assured them this was all perfectly legal. In all likelihood, they were unwittingly helping a child trafficking operation. Legitimate religious organizations aren't waltzing into Haiti and absconding with children without permission from any Haitian authority. I'm sure many of the child trafficking operations pose as religious groups or use legitimate religious groups as "useful idiots" to help carry out their crimes.

5 posted on 01/31/2010 10:27:30 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: Frantzie; All

I hear that some African countries have offered the Haitians a place, but that they prefer the Caribbean, US, or Canada.


6 posted on 01/31/2010 10:28:25 PM PST by gleeaikin
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To: CharlesWayneCT
apparently they probably got arrested because NO money changed hands...

this is the trouble with places like Haiti...people aren't so willing to take in 25 yro jobless men who roam the streets but they certainly can take in babies and children and do some good...

we sit here in front of our tvs and have to watch the debacle down there...

so lesson learned....just send MONEY....thats' all they want....the money...

7 posted on 01/31/2010 10:29:53 PM PST by cherry
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To: CharlesWayneCT
the children, whom she said they obtained from well-known Haitian pastor Jean Sanbil

Poor choice of words.

8 posted on 01/31/2010 10:37:01 PM PST by Greysard
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To: Frantzie

“Let U.S Baptists pay for all the Haitians bankrupting Florida or the liberal “American” Catholic church brining in Somalis or pandering over illegal aliens. I think the Mormons are doing the same thing. Let the churches pay for all the illegals. BS.”

Well, I do not think that the Baptists, Catholics or Mormons will be be smuggling illegal alien children from Haiti into the US. Instead, they will go though the proper legal channels to help these poor Haitian orphans be adopted in the United States.


9 posted on 01/31/2010 10:53:03 PM PST by trumandogz (The Democrats are driving us to Socialism at 100 MPH -The GOP is driving us to Socialism at 97.5 MPH)
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To: Frantzie
Maybe they should worry about American children and families sufferings instead of importing more poor.

Did you read the article? They weren't bringing any of them to the U.S. They were trying to take them to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

MM

10 posted on 01/31/2010 11:01:15 PM PST by MississippiMan
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To: CharlesWayneCT

There isn’t any trademark on the moniker “Baptist” in the USA, and a lot of space headed weirdos call themselves Baptists. It isn’t just the old, well respected church on the corner on Main Street. Westboro Baptist... ‘nuff said.


11 posted on 01/31/2010 11:11:18 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: CharlesWayneCT
If the chaos is as it has been described, there may have been no one from whom to OBTAIN any kind of papers-

I have friends who adopted Haitian children 10 years ago, and it was a mess then - what must it be like with bodies everywhere and govt. buildings collapsed--

Yes, they may have been naive, but I seriously doubt there were anything but the best of intentions.

12 posted on 01/31/2010 11:14:04 PM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch ( T.G., global warming denier.)
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch

And then, at best, jumping the gun gets you SERIOUSLY slapped. I doubt that Obummer will give a care.


13 posted on 01/31/2010 11:21:04 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Yeah. The first thing I thought of when I read about this episode was the VooDoo “American Baptists” from the story of the other day.

That was some wacked out “peace & justice” church using the name ‘American Baptist.’


14 posted on 01/31/2010 11:21:22 PM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus)
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To: Greysard

And they say the pastor obtained most of the children from “distant relatives” who couldn’t care for them. Needless to say, these clueless or corrupt churchy folks couldn’t possibly have verified this information. Yep, some self-appointed pastor in Haiti tells you he got a bunch of children from distant relatives, and would you mind taking them across the border to the Dominican Republic, and never mind checking with the Haitian government first.

These people *may* have meant well (at least some of them), but they didn’t take even the most basic precautions to ensure that this project was legitimate before diving into it, and ended up getting caught in the act of committing a serious crime. They’re right where they belong. Maybe this will teach them to employ some common sense in the future. Like before some drug running outfit has somebody pose as a pastor and ask them to take a truckload of sealed boxes labelled “Baby Formula” across some border.


15 posted on 01/31/2010 11:46:58 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
If the chaos is as it has been described, there may have been no one from whom to OBTAIN any kind of papers

Legitimate adoptions have been getting the papers they needed within a short period of time, but other than already approved adoptions, the Haitian government is explicitly prohibiting the removal of any children from the country, since it's impossible to confirm under the present circumstances which ones are actually orphans and which orphans have other relatives willing and able to care for them.

These people were taking some Haitian pastor's word that the children had been brought to him by "distant relatives", and they were planning to put up for adoption any children who didn't have "close relatives" -- except that their only source of information about the children was the pastor. And somehow they have plenty of money to buy a beach resort hotel in the Dominican Republic with plans to turn it into an orphanage, so why couldn't they just use some of their extensive financial resources to care for the children in Haiti until the government had a chance to try to find their relatives and issue legal permission for them to leave the country if no relatives could be found to care for them? Answer: the objective wasn't to care for the children, it was to get them out of the country and then into the hands of high-paying adoptive parents, who in most cases wouldn't realize that some of these kids had been illegally snatched off the streets after becoming separated from their still-living parents or other relatives, and snuck out of Haiti by child-traffickers.

16 posted on 02/01/2010 12:00:48 AM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: CharlesWayneCT

orphan incident????

Until a couple of days ago, stealing children was called KIDNAPPING.


17 posted on 02/01/2010 4:31:54 AM PST by GatĂșn(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)
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To: CharlesWayneCT
"These orphans weren't coming to the U.S., just being moved next door....."

They did not even know for sure if the kids were in fact orphans.

"and putting them jail doesn't seem like a good way to help the children."

Break the law (by kidnapping children) as long as your intentions are (allegedly) good? wow.

18 posted on 02/01/2010 4:42:42 AM PST by wtc911 ("How you gonna get down that hill?")
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To: cherry
apparently they probably got arrested because NO money changed hands...

_____________________________________

Do you have evidence that this is true or did you just pull it out of your.....ear.

19 posted on 02/01/2010 4:44:43 AM PST by wtc911 ("How you gonna get down that hill?")
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To: wtc911; cherry
Do you have evidence that this is true or did you just pull it out of your.....ear.

Having lived in the DR and Brazil and having visited Haiti a couple of times, I can say it's not an unreasonable supposition.
20 posted on 02/01/2010 4:52:51 AM PST by aruanan
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