Sans home and identity: A story from the US
Ambika Pandit, TNN, Nov 7, 2010, 04.17am IST
MUMBAI: Among the many looking forward to American President Barack Obama's visit to India was an anxious Jennifer Edgell Haynes. She has no interest in Indo-US relations. All she wants is to be reunited with her family in Michigan.
In an open letter addressed to the US president, which has been delivered to the office of the US consulate general at Lincoln House on November 2, this 28-year-old mother of two, sketches the shocking tale of an inter-country adoption gone wrong. Haynes was adopted by an American couple from a Mumbai orphanage in 1989. Unfortunately for the seven-year-old, her foster family didn't want her two years on. The adoption agency 'gave' Haynes away to another American couple in Michigan. If only that meant all would be well. Haynes claims that her new foster parents exploited her and she was forced to seek refuge in other foster homes, eventually ending up on America's mean streets.
Things settled down a bit when she married but that was an all-too brief period of stability. Haynes was deported to India when she was caught in a drug case in 2008. She was told she wasn't an American citizen and had no right to stay in the US.
Today, she says, "Till then I thought I was very much an American but when the immigration officials saw my papers, it came to light that the documentation process for my US citizenship was not complete. I was put in a plane and next thing I knew, I was being sent to India. That was July 2, ironically, also my wedding anniversary..."Haynes' letter to Obama asks for the chance to be united with her children Kadafi, 7, and Kassana, 6. She last saw them two years ago and her only link with them is the telephone line.
Haynes says her problems with being deported to her "home" country are similar to most adopted children. "I cannot relate to life in India. I have no family here. I cannot even get a job because I have no identity papers here. The last two years have been about moving from place to place and making ends meet with whatever little money I get doing some odd jobs. Where do I go?".
Activist Arun Dohle says Haynes's harrowing tale brings to the fore the dangers of inter-country adoption. Anjali Pawar, director of the NGO Sakhi, is supporting Haynes in her fight for justice. She says, "Her case reveals that the adoptive families did not do the needful to complete the formalities for an American citizenship after she was taken there. This entire adoption process needs to be examined." Pawar adds, "Ultimately, the government will have to focus on in-country adoptions."
Haynes, meanwhile, prays the US president's visit might end her run of ill-luck.
Deported from Chicago, adoptee waits for Barack Obama’s visit
November 10, 2010
From Daily News and Analysis:
Jennifer Haynes, 28, abruptly deported from Chicago in 2008, is eagerly waiting for US president Barack Obama’s visit to Mumbai in the hope that her letter will reach him and she may be able to go home to her husband and children.
In her letter to the president on November 2, Haynes has stated, “Until last year I believed that I was a US citizen. Now I realise that I was a victim of child-trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation.” Her letter was submitted to the US consulate in Mumbai.
Haynes was adopted by an American couple in 1989 at the age of seven. However, her experience in 50 different foster homes was traumatic, she has stated.
DNA had first reported Haynes’ case when she moved the Bombay high court seeking action against her adoption centre, which did not complete the necessary formalities at the time of her adoption and after being booked for a drug felony she was deported to India, 20 years after she had seen it last.
Her husband Justin and children Kadafi, 7, and Kanassa, 6, live in Chicago. Haynes, however, without a passport of either countries, lives in India with no family, no source of income and no documents to avail a job.
“Never did I think I was not an American citizen until I was arrested for a minor drug charge and sent immediately for deportation. Your country which had promised me so much hope, instead treated me like an object to be discarded like damaged goods,” Haynes had said in her letter.
“Can you please help me?” Haynes has asked president Obama. She has also said, “Now I am an American without a country; a lost child who was sent away from my home, my family and my children.”
Sangeeta Punekar of the Advait Foundation and Anjali Pawar of Sakhee, the NGOs supporting Haynes’ case, have also urged Obama to let her go back to the US.
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