The plight of Haiti's orphans

People's hearts go out to Haiti's orphans and Secretary Clinton says the U.S. won't let red tape stand in the way of helping them. But it does have to follow international adoption procedures to protect those children, and those laws did not change as a result of the earthquake.

The State Department says before the earthquake there were as many as 900 parents in the U.S. who had filed paperwork with the Department of Homeland Security saying they intended to adopt from Haiti. There are three groups of orphans the State Department is dealing with:

1. Orphans already in the process of being adopted. 50 of them have been given visas. Most of them have been flown out of the country.

2. Other orphans were in the early stages of adoption. Parents had been identified and those parents had gone through many of the U.S. And Haitian legal procedures. The U.S. now has waived that paperwork and the children have been given humanitarian parole. Several hundred have been flown to the U.S. to meet with the prospective parents. They can stay in the U.S for 2 years where the parents can complete adoption process.

3. Children who have not yet been matched with adoptive parents will not be moved from Haiti, at least right now – unless they have a medical condition. The State Department says it's working with orphanages to find protection for them.

The organization "Save the Children" says the "vast majority of children currently on their own in Haiti are not orphans but simply separated from families." Those relatives could be alive and desperate to find them and "taking children out of the country immediately," they say, "would cause even more trauma" and could allow traffickers to exploit these children.

If you want to adopt a child from Haiti, the State Department says it's best to wait until some of the chaos subsides, but you can get started by checking out their Web site: www.adoption.state.gov

If you already are adopting a Haitian child and need help you should send detailed information to: Haitianadoptions@dhs.gov. They match it with their information and help get that child out of Haiti.