A Midvale native and Air Force lawyer has emerged as the go-to guy for Haitian orphans hoping to exit the quake-ravaged country.
Since shortly after the Jan. 12 cataclysm, Lt. Col. Randon Draper, 45, has been pivotal in helping hundreds of youngsters and their adoptive parents clear procedural hurdles to emigration.
The University of Utah graduate is attached to the 621st Contingency Response Wing. The unit was dispatched to Port-au-Prince to set up airport operations after the magnitude 7.0 quake brought things to a chaotic halt.
Military lawyers, like Draper from the 18th Air Force Legal Office, often assist commanders with engagement issues and legal-political impediments. Among the things he found upon touching down in Haiti were children in the process of adoption whose departure had been stymied in a bureaucratic tangle. Communication breakdowns left them in limbo.
"My main concern at the beginning was the process -- making sure the right kids got out to their families," he said Saturday in a telephone interview. "But we had to make sure those who weren't supposed to leave didn't. In a crisis, there is a very real risk of child exploitation."
Draper, who earned a law degree at the University of Idaho College of Law and then a master's of law degree at the U. of U.'s S. J. Quinney School of Law, began coordinating efforts between Haitian and U.S. officials to expedite emigration for kids already in the adoption system.
"You feel an instant connection with these people, especially the children," he said. "When you pick them up, they cling to your neck and appreciate any love you can give them. I think I appreciated it as much as they did."
Salt Lake City physician, Tawnya Constantino, who recently accompanied 80 orphans out of Haiti from the Maison Des Enfants de Dieu orphanage, praised Draper.
"We were never sure who to listen to," she said of the confusion and contradictory instructions between U.S. and Haitian officials. "We weren't sure who to believe."
Then she found Draper and the group's emigration problems were solved.
"When it comes to getting the kids out, he coordinated it," she said.
About 500 Haitian children have left the country for new families in the United States, Draper said. Another 800 to 900 are in a adoption pipeline and waiting to leave for this country. That doesn't account for those bound for other countries.
But it's not getting any easier. Since Friday, any child leaving Haiti has had to be approved for emigration by Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis. The move came after some international relief groups raised concerns about child exploitation issues.
That has slowed down pending adoptions even more, said Draper, who hopes the prime minister soon will appoint someone else to fill that role and coordinate with the U.S. Embassy "to streamline the process."
"We still have a lot of work ahead of us," he said. "But it is really great work that everyone is doing to reunite these new families."
Draper expects to remain in Haiti with his unit until mid-February.
