PORTAGE, Mich. — With a long weekend ahead, a Portage family is having a hard time enjoying their campground home, as Nick and Rachel Bryant told FOX 17 they're worried about whether their son will ever get home.
“His smile brightens up everyone who comes into contact with him. His favorite color is blue. He loves spaghetti and chicken,” Rachel said of her 10-year-old foster son.
Their adoption journey began in 2020. “We felt called to adopt a child from Haiti,” Nick said.
In December 2023, they were matched with their son, Diumi, and they video chat every Monday. The Bryants say they fell in love with Diumi instantly, as he taught their son their language and they learned his. But March brought tension to their relationship.
“Haiti is a country in turmoil and the situation has been unstable ever since,” Rachel explained.
Gangs have besieged several neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, burning down homes and engaging in gun battles with police, according to the Associated Press.
“Our biggest concern is that our child is in immediate danger, so we want to bring him home and have him live here,” Rachel said.
“We don't want our children to come home in body bags. They need to come home now,” Nick added.
The couple say they contacted the US State Department, which oversees international adoptions, and that the department told them in March that it would help them place more than 101 children with families when the violence first began, they claim.
“They actually rescinded that and withdrew it and basically told us we had to continue with the adoption process as it was set out and go through the process in Haiti,” Rachel told FOX 17.
She says that's not possible because government offices and courts across the country are closed.
The Bryants are asking the State Department to declare emergency humanitarian parole, which is granted to foreign nationals (who are ordinarily inadmissible) to enter the United States temporarily for urgent and urgent humanitarian reasons or important public interest.
“I love him like I would my own child, but I still worry about him even though I've never met him in person,” Rachel said.
The couple say local lawmakers are willing to work with them and listen to their story, but for now they just have to wait.
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