Sarah Wallace is a Canadian Citizen, born and raised in the Parkland County of Alberta. She is 6.5 months pregnant and needs to urgently get back to Canada to deal with some medical concerns. Due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, her two adoptive children, whose adoptions are in the final stages but not complete, are not eligible to enter Canada at this time and therefore their application for temporary visas is not being processed. While Sarah, her American husband, Jean-Pierre, and their biological son, Jean-Jacques, would be able to leave Haiti and enter Canada, they will not leave their adoptive children, Eva-Maria (2 years old) and Jean-Moise (4 years old).
For 12 years Sarah has been working through the organization she founded, Olive Tree Projects, to keep families together in Haiti.
Now it’s our turn to help her keep her family together.
In January 2017 Sarah and her husband, Jean-Pierre (JP), took in a very sick, abandoned, baby boy and after a few months decided to start the process of adopting Jean-Moise. Their biological son, Jean-Jacque was born in September of 2017. And then in March 2018 social services dropped off a new born girl who was found thrown away in a cement bag, the placenta was still attached. When social services hadn’t found a home for this little girl Sarah and JP made the decision to start the formal adoption process for her too. Sarah and JP now have legal guardianship of Jean-Moise and Eva-Maria and for the past 2 years have continually been working at formalizing the adoptions. All necessary documentation is complete and the remainder of the adoption process is in the hands of the Haitian authorities. This process cannot be expedited and may take longer than expected to complete because the staff of the Haitian adoption authority are working in shifts in order to reduce the number of people in their office and reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19.
Haiti has been riddled with power and fuel shortages, kidnappings, protests, increased violence and country-wide roadblocks that caused a "country lockdown" for much of last year. She has not been back to Canada for a break since February 2018. The stressful environment is affecting her mental and physical health.
Sarah is now expecting their 4th child (2nd biological) in October. She has had some hypoglycemic attacks, and when she had an ultrasound done the doctor said he was unable to confirm if the baby's heart was properly formed. For these reasons Sarah needs to get to Canada to get proper medical help and to deliver her baby safely.
Their son Jean-Jacques was born in Haiti in 2017. Sarah had to have an emergency C-Section due to fetal distress. Fortunately one of the midwives was there to resuscitate Jean-Jacques, as the private hospital did not have staff equipped and skilled to handle the resuscitation. That same hospital was recently closed at night because there was no power and no fuel available to run a generator.
Last Saturday Sarah received a letter from the IRCC stating that under Canada’s Covid19 regulations the children do not qualify under the definition of Immediate Family Members as they are not fully adopted. Legal guardianship does not count.
However, under the IRCC's Covid-19 Travel Restrictions, exemptions CAN be made for guardians or tutors of foreign nationals who are residing in Canada. It seems unbalanced for the IRCC to allow foreign national minors residing in Canada to bring their foreign national guardians or tutors into Canada, but the foreign national children of whom Sarah (a Canadian Citizen born and raised) is the guardian of, are not exempt from the same restrictions.
What we are asking for is immediate assistance to allow Sarah to bring Jean-Moise and Eva-Maria to Canada
Note: Donations made to this site do not go to Sarah's family.
