Spiraling violence and airline shutdowns in Haiti cut families off from adoptive kids

MEXICO CITY — The last words Michelle Reed heard from her 6-year-old adopted son, Esai Reed, in early November were: “Mom, come get me.” But after U.S. aviation authorities on Tuesday blocked airlines from traveling to Haiti for 30 days following the shooting of a number of planes by gangs, 51-year-old Reed is once again cut off from her adoptive son, who lives in an orphanage in Haiti waiting for paperwork to go through a bureaucratic process hamstrung by Haiti’s spiraling crisis. I don’t know if he’ll survive this.” Reed is one of dozens of families cut off from their adoptive children, and many more worried about their loved ones on the island – one of the rippling humanitarian consequences that the recent surge of violence and political turmoil have had in Haiti this week. But families like Reed’s say they feel helpless and a mix of crisis in Haiti, and a tangle of American and Haitian bureaucracy have blocked efforts to get their children passports to leave, despite Reed already being referred to as “mom” by Esai, who shares her last name. The U.S. government did not immediately respond to request for comment by the AP, but has previously told Reed and other parents in letters that “despite intensive efforts,” it had not found a solution to allow children without adoption decrees to leave Haiti and enter the U.S.