ODESSA, Texas — A family in Odessa has been looking to welcome a new child into their family since last year. However, that hasn't happened because their adopted daughter is from Haiti and is stuck there because of gang violence that has broken out throughout the country.
Craig and Haley Foreman adopted four-year-old Thara last year after a lengthy adoption process.
“So, we started to adopt from Haiti in 2018. That's whenever we first began the process. That was followed up by about five years of waiting before we were matched with a young four-year-old girl by the Haitian government for us to be able to finalize an adoption,” said Craig Foreman.
The recent gang violence and instability in Haiti has thrown a wrench into everything and slowed that process down.
“Everything was moving along very well considering all the things that go on in Haiti until the about 3 months ago, whenever a lot of chaos started because of gang violence. And that's whenever the news first started to pick up some of it. But what it caused is everything basically came to a standstill,” said Craig Foreman.
The Foremans have been working with a campaign made up of various lawyers and about 25 other families to try and reach out to multiple U.S. lawmakers. They are trying to get something done to help bring their daughter and other children home that are stuck in Haiti.
“Right now, we've got a daughter in Haiti who lives in an orphanage and who doesn't have adequate access to food, adequate access to medical care. And so what we've been trying to accomplish is get these kids home. There's about 70 of them who are left, and we want the Department of State and Homeland Security to work to get these kids home to the United States,” said Craig Foreman.
But they haven’t given up and won’t give up until they get Thara home.
“What we continuously tell ourselves is that there's nothing we won't do to fight for our daughter, to advocate for what's best for her," Haley Foreman said. "So that's what we do at day-to-day is just figure out ways to fight for her, for her well-being so that we can get her here home safely.”