Here is a Human Interest Story you can pass on to any press you can tag who ever you think would pick it up and e-mail news stations and networks! #DRCStuck #CNN #NBC #GMA #Huffingtonpost #FoxNews #USAToday #Oprah #AngelinaJolie #BenAffleck #AaronRodgers April 4, 2014 Human Interest Story We are a military family currently living in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, our legal residence is California in the Central Valley. We have adopted a child from the Democratic Republic of Congo but, he is STUCK! We and a group of parents in our same situation, have banded together to push the Department of State and Congress to intervene on our behalf. What they are doing is not enough. Our stories have already gained national attention and in less then 2 days, our Petition to congress has already received over 75,000 signatures. We started this on April 2nd here is the link: petition2congress/14960/please-help-resolve-pending-adoptions-from-democratic-republic-co/?m=5272303 We adoptive parents have partnered with the campaign Both Ends Burning to help bring our legally adoptive children home. On April 14th I have a live Skype chat scheduled to meet my child for the first time. A fellow adopting parent has traveled to visit her son and has arranged this for me so I can “meet” him. I would love for this to be featured on a major media stage to gain more notice for our situation. A delegation for our son’s country is scheduled to come to the U.S. April 18th. That is why hundreds of us adopting parents (500+) are pushing hard and fast to get our voices heard. We have an official press release that I am attaching on the situation in general, plus photos and a small bio of where we are exactly. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Amanda and David Allen 559-416-3128 dda24_2000@yahoo PRESS RELEASE April 3, 2014 Release Date: For Immediate Release Hundreds of children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that were in the process of being adopted by American families are now stuck without any resolution in sight. Many of these children have been legally adopted by US families through the DRC courts and have US visas issued by the US Embassy in Kinshasa. Yet the DRC has suspended the issuance of exit letters, am immigration document required for these children to leave the country. As a result, there is no way for the adoptive parents to be united with their children short of relocating to DRC indefinitely. These children are stuck because DRC declared a moratorium on exit letters for all adoptions that had not been approved by September 25, 2013. Yet even for families whose cases were approved by that date, exit letters have been withheld. I wish I could tell you exactly how many families are directly impacted by this problem. I cannot because even six months into this crisis, the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have not even bothered to cross-reference their lists of families in the process of adoption to create a complete listing of the pipeline families that are now stuck. Even more disappointingly, there has been little diplomatic effort with the DRC government to resolve this issue. Every day that passes, these waiting children are being damaged. They need a solution now! Point of contact for me is 559-416-3128 or by email at dda24_2000@yahoo. Advocacy/Coalition Both End Burning group Kelly Tillotson Dempsey point of contact is: by phone 919-444-9034 or by email at [email protected] Thank you for listening, Amanda Allen We would like to introduce you to our family, David, Amanda, Faleen 6, Cole 5, Lola 3, and Muamba 2. We have 4 children, but one is STUCK. Our 2 year old son is still in his country despite the fact that he has been legally adopted by us for almost 10 months now. We are devastated that we cannot be parents to our own child. We just want our son to come home. He needs medical assistance as well, but it is impossible to determine how severely his leg is damaged. We have a U.S. doctor reviewing his case and she has determined based on the evidence we do have, he should receive medical attention as soon as possible to make sure his leg develops normally. Please help us to bring our son home. This petition will help force our government officials to take this more seriously and act! petition2congress/14960/please-help-resolve-pending-adoptions-from-democratic-republic-co/?m=5272303
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:44:37 +0000