Good News from Ministry of Interior (MOI) Visit

I finally have some time to update my blog regarding the Ministry of Interior (MOI) “happenings”…. Actually, I have some good news to report.

There has been a bit of a re-organization inside of the MOI office regarding the adoption passport application files process. Mr. Guerdy no longer does the adoption interviews and no longer deals with the adoption files in his upstairs office. He has been reassigned to other duties.

In the meantime, Mr. Guignard’s office downstairs has been remodeled into three offices. One is his office, then there is the “interview office” (adoption file storage and adoption processing office) and a secretary’s office (that also doubles as a reception room).

The new person in charge of doing the interviews and who also reviews all files (taking a load off Mr. Guignard) is Madam Duret. I really like her and was impressed with her professionalism, hard work ethic, organizational skills and the way she has taken over the processing/reviewing/interviewing process of the adoption files.

Unfortunately, she has inherited a bit of a mess because as most of you know, the process, the way files were stored and processed had been a mess (no other way to describe it). Madam Duret has organized the files, has created a database of all files, with all pertinent information and is reviewing all the ones in the office. You can walk in and ask for a file and she can put her hand on what is going on with that particular file within a minute. All files are organized by the number that the Immigration Office has assigned to the files. Even if somebody walks in without a file number, she can find the file by name almost immediately. (Like I said, she is highly organized.)

Okay, now come the “bad news”… As I mentioned above, she inherited a bit of a mess. For example, I had to re-do interviews that I had done back in July and August because the second page or first page of the interview form was missing… or… passport photos that had been turned in were missing (that happened with one other file, luckily we had extra passport photos available), etc. Also, some files had their content mixed up if an orphanage had several files in at the same time, there is a chance that a paper from one file ended up in the file of another adopted child.

Thus, orphanage representatives need to go into the office and ask Madam Duret to check on the files to ensure that there is nothing wrong with the file, especially if the interview had been done already in the past and the file had been expected in Immigration and never made it over there….chances are that something needs to be corrected.

Additionally, in the past (at least for U.S. families) passport numbers were enough, but because Mr. Guignard realizes that a passport number is not a permanently assigned i.d. number, each adoptive parent must supply their Social Security Number. (I had to provide that for all the files that I had been assisting with and where I had already done the interviews back a few months ago.) Also, as I understood Madam Duret, she can accept a driver’s license number because they do not change, but SSNs are better.

So, if you are a family waiting and your interview had been done a while ago, maybe your file is still in MOI because they need another i.d. number aside from the passport number.

Also, please note that if there is nothing wrong with the adoption related papers, the turn-around time after the interview is done is much shorter now. HOWEVER, if there is something wrong with any one paper, those papers/documents have to be fixed prior to Mr. Guignard signing the letter for passport issuance. Most of the documents in Haiti are typed with old fashioned typewriters and/or are hand written, thus there is a lot of room for error. If there is even one misspelled word, that document will be rejected and a new one has to made. For example, one file that I was working on had the adopted child’s name spelled “Johnny” correctly on the top of the Archive paper, but in the next paragraph, the name was misspelled “Johny” --- and it was rejected. An entirely new Archive papers has to be made and re-submitted to MOI, and that can take several weeks if not a couple of months to get fixed.

I also saw Mr. Guignard who seemed to be in a much better mood, he was very polite and friendly this time around. He appears to have a close and trusting working relationship with Madam Duret and that is a good thing. Now he won’t have to be the only one to review all the documents which was happening before and caused the slow down. Files are being signed out and orphanages are able to know exactly what they need to do to get the files signed out. Also, no more files, papers, interview forms and/or passport photos will be lost.