Posted on 02/01/2010 5:58:01 PM PST by Dubya
MERIDIAN, Idaho (BP)--Members of two Southern Baptist churches in Idaho are awaiting word on what a Haitian judge will decide Feb. 1 when he hears the case of 10 Americans accused of unlawfully trying to remove 33 children from Haiti.
Five of the 10 are members of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and three are from Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, including Eastside's pastor, Paul Thompson. Two others are believed to be from other states.
(Excerpt) Read more at bpnews.net ...
Early morning Boston CBS news reports that MA is flying in ‘Haitian refugees’; they’re not saying how many planeloads. Good news from Fla.’s perspective, since up to now Fla. has been the main (only?) state where they’ve been flying them in. Fla. residents complained loudly — who’s going to support them? Is this another Mariel Boat Lift? Crime wave goes up and up, etc.. Evidently Obama took a look at Fla.’s electoral votes and called his BFF, MA. Gov. Deval Patrick. Willy nilly, here they come. (It would have been nice if Patrick had asked MA. residents if they would like to open the state to Haitian refugees.)
Listen, all I am telling you is what I heard in the interview. If facts are changing so be it.
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Except that some of the kids were not even orphans and are now back with their legitimate families.
B. Some of the kids were not even orphans and have been returned to their legitimate families.
When I was a cop one of the things I learned is to be especially attentive to anyone carrying a Bible and swearing that he was doing God's work. Nearly every con-man in certain areas hid behind the Good Book.
I'm not saying these people were anything worse than well-intentioned fools but I'm not buying their story without question either.
Some great points wtc911.
Just because I’m carrying a christian banner, doesn’t make me a legitimate person or organization.
I think GovernmentShrinker has some of the best information regarding this story and especially one of the spokespeople, Laura Silsby. Thanks for the research.
People are doing or trying to do some great work over there. Some who may have good intentions go about it the wrong way.
I again congratulate the Immigration folks who stopped these folks from crossing.
Understand that some of the kids have been returned to their parents.
Also, I just used my computer's search/find function on this page, and I can't find any use of the word "priest" in the article or by anybody on this thread except you.
Help me out here. You're saying there was a priest involved? Once more, do you have a link?
Thanks again.
About the children (some) not being orphans, that was reported in various places but the word I trust most on it is my wife's cousin's. She actually runs an orphanage in Haiti (all the children were killed). Word from her is that these kids were not all orphans.
Yes, I'm really impressed, given 1) the total chaos that presently reigns in Haiti, and 2) the established culture of official corruption there, that Silsby wasn't able to sail on through with the children just by lightly greasing a few palms. I suspect that may have been her plan, since she didn't even have so much as fake authorization documents, much less real ones, to present to immigration officials at the border.
I meant to say not baby traders...lol...sorry
GovernmentShrinker:
Let me start by saying, you and I will probably end up disagreeing on other topics here on FR, but as for as this thread, I have agreed with you about 100%. Always need room to wiggle. LOL
To add to your case, below is a link to a yahoo article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100202/ts_alt_afp/haitiquakechildrenuscrime
US consular officials visited the detained Americans and brought them food and insect repellent, but relatives back in the United States said they had hoped American officials might have done more.
I'm glad to hear that American officials have other, more pressing priorities in Haiti, than providing more than the bare minimum to these people. Even the insect repellent was a bonus.
Here are some excerpts from an article in the Gainesville Sun, with bits of pertinent information that I haven't seen elsewhere http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100202/ZNYT03/2023012/1008/WEATHER?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar :
The Haitian authorities said the group planned to offer the children for adoption, but Ms. Silsby denied that. “We intended to raise those children and be with them their entire lives, if necessary,” she said, standing behind a door of thick metal bars in pedal pushers, sandals and a blouse printed with palm trees. “These kind of children are sold across the border for the price of a chicken. We wanted to give them lives of joy and dignity in God’s love.”
Ms. Silsby’s effort appeared to be a project of a group called New Life Children’s Refuge, which is described on the Web site of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, as a “nonprofit Christian ministry dedicated to rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children.” The group was founded by Ms. Silsby, 40, and Charisa Coulter, 24, Ms. Silsby’s live-in nanny, who was also among those jailed in Port-au-Prince. Most of the group who went to Haiti belonged to Eastside Baptist Church or Central Valley Baptist in Meridian, Idaho, while others came from Texas and Kansas, Ms. Silsby said.
A document on the Eastside Baptist Web site laid out the group’s plans for a “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission.” The itinerary for Jan. 23 said: “Drive bus from Santo Domingo into Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the D.R.” The itinerary said the group planned to take the children to a 45-room hotel the group leased in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, where they would live until a permanent orphanage was constructed in nearby Magante.
Although Ms. Silsby said the group did not intend to offer the children for adoption, the Web site said they would “strive” to “provide opportunities for adoption through partnership with New Life Adoption Foundation,” which subsidizes adoptions “for loving Christian parents who would otherwise not be able to afford to adopt.” The status of New Life Adoption Foundation was not immediately clear. The group is not registered as an adoption agency in Idaho and does not appear to be registered as a federal nonprofit. The group also did not appear on a list of accredited international adoption agencies on the Web site of the State Department.
Bottom line is that it appears that all money being collected for this operation was going directly to Laura Silsby and her young live-in nanny, who are the only people formally connected to the only formally organized entity that's formally involved in this whole mess. And Silsby tells people whatever she thinks they want to hear that will induce them to give her money, let her out of jail, etc, resulting in lots of conflicting claims from her. And I'd love to hear what children she has that she needs a live-in a nanny for, and where the heck their father is.
And now the Dominican authorities are starting to pipe up:
“Dominican authorities have no knowledge of Americans held in Haiti “
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2010/2/2/34675/Dominican-authorities-have-no-knowledge-of-Americans-held-in-Haiti
Seems the first they’d heard of this whole import-Haitian-orphans, run-orphanage-in-Dominican-Republic plan was when this group was arrested.
Oops, sorry. My mistake, It was Vic Vega. Vic, you mentioned they got verbal permission from a "priest," but there is no mention of a priest in this article. I'm interested. Can you give me a link?
And no link on the other story, about these kids not being orphans and in fact being now returned to their "legitimate families.". Except your wife's cousin, wtc, with no particular specification that it was this orphanage or these kids she was talking about.
BTW, it is not at all unusual for kids who have one or two living parents to be at orphanages, especially if they were dropped off there because they had handicaps, or because their parents were destitute. That was what happened to our son Vanya, adopted at age 5, who had been abandoned by his mother at a Russian (Kamchatka) orphanage shortly after he was born with facial deformities.
And yes, BTW, our adoption of him was legal, had a sign-off years back from his mother, and had all the papers, which took the better part of 9 months and a great deal of expense to assemble.
Especially since Haiti's paperwork requirements were changed just last week, and the Haitian orphanage children's situation being desperate, I would never make the assumption that their Baptist rescuers were criminal traffickers: absent further, incriminating evidence, of course. Cordially.
Will read the article.
Wow, Silsby story has really fallen apart.
Thinking about #31 you wrote, what do you think her intentions were?
I’m holding out hope that some of the others caught up in this were not fully aware of what Silsby was doing. And they get released. Next time do some due diligence before joining a volunteer group.
I’m sure we will see a fresh thread on this topic again. If so, I might have to ping you.
Great work.
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You will of course excuse me for believing a family member who is on the ground and involved in the same activity.
One of the first threads I read.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2441044/posts
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60T23I20100130
Technically the article reads “Baptist minister”, I wrote “priest”.
Some kids returned to parents
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100202/ts_alt_afp/haitiquakechildrenuscrime
Mrs. Don-o, read some if not all of the post from GovernmentShrinker. By far one of the most investigative covers ever on a thread.
Hopefully helpful to you.
Ok GS, no more compliments for you. LOL
"While she acknowledged that the group did not have documentation that the children were orphans or permission to remove them from the country, Ms Silsby said, after she and the others were arrested, that they had planned to return to the capital to complete the paperwork.
Ms Silsby said that in the midst of the crisis they did not think they needed the documents. She said the group did not intend to offer the children for adoption.
Patricia Vargas, regional director of the SOS Children's Village, where the children are being cared for, said officials at the Haitian Institute of Social Welfare told her ''most of the kids have family''.
According to Ms Vargas' conversation with some children of the group, some of the youngsters ''say their parents are alive, and some of them gave us an address and phone numbers''.
A. No documentation or permission to take the kids.
B. They were going to keep the kids (no adoption.)
C. The kids have families.
the source
http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-missionaries-planned-to-keep-haiti-children-20100202-nb07.html?autostart=1
Re “B”: Except that the detailed description of the plans for the trip, posted on the website of one of the churches whose members are currently under arrest, said that the plan WAS to arrange adoptions.
Silsby is such a busy liar, she can’t keep her story straight.
To make money, initially from gathering donations from members of the various churches she'd sucked into believing her scam, and later from selling kids in illegal adoption arrangements (or worse).
As I've said before, I'm sure some, maybe even most or all of the other people involved in this were well-intentioned "useful idiots". But this level of idiocy is dangerous and they need to be taught a lesson they'll never forget. These strike me as the sort of people who'd readily accept a sealed package from a stranger who shows up at their church, telling them it's Bibles for underground Christians in some oppressive country the receiver is about to travel to, and agree to the stranger's request to take it with them on board an airplane.
Silsby (and possibly Coulter as well) deserves a long prison stint in a HAITIAN prison.
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