Today's Letter to the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton from the Joint Council

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton


Secretary of State

U.S. Department of State

2201 C Street N.W.

Washington D.C., 20520

Dear Madam Secretary:

First and foremost, we would like to thank you for your outstanding leadership in

coordinating the United States' humanitarian response to Tuesday's tragic earthquake in

Haiti. This is one of the greatest human tragedies in recent history. We understand that

the focus of immediate efforts is to ensure that all who survived this terrible disaster have

access to life sustaining necessities such as health care, food, water and shelter.

As you begin to construct the next phase of the United States' and international response,

we urge you to consider the needs of orphan children. As you well know, these children

are already among the most vulnerable and in circumstances like these, are at even

greater risk. Our experience has been that a natural disaster of this magnitude can not

only have serious effects on children previously orphaned, but sadly, also be the cause for

additional children to find themselves displaced or orphaned.

As we understand, there were approximately 20,000 children living in Haiti's 187

licensed orphanages prior to this disaster. The vast majority of these institutions are

located in Port-Au-Prince and the surrounding region. In a small percentage of cases, the

children are eligible for international adoption and have been matched with American

families.

With this in mind, we respectfully request that you give every consideration to

employing some or all of the following options for assisting Haiti's orphaned children:

 Ensure that these children are a high priority in all U.S. evacuation and relief

plans.

 Coordinate with U.S. based faith based and private relief partners to help

channel relief an appropriate level of relief to orphan children.

 Identify opportunities for temporary care and shelter within Haiti or Haiti's

border countries where these children could be safely evacuated.

 Exercise broad discretion in the issuance of humanitarian parole and temporary

visas for orphan children who have connections (adoption or familial) with

American families.

 Identify opportunities for orphan children to receive temporary care and shelter

within the U.S.

Attached please find a list of orphanages we know to be in the affected region. We hope

that this information and the above recommendations are useful as your team devises a

course of action. If we can be of any further assistance to you on this or other matters of

mutual concern, please do not hesitate to let us know.