In the days after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, television news crews beamed back pictures of unspeakable suffering, including children at orphanages with not enough food and water to eat and drink.

In some of those pictures, would-be mothers and fathers in the United States saw the children they had already agreed to adopt, sleeping outside in tents, their caretakers too afraid to let them sleep inside their damaged buildings for fear of another aftershock.

Between January and April of 2010, eleven hundred children in the process of being adopted by Americans were rescued from the rubble and delivered to the states *before* their adoptions were finalized.  The kids were brought in as refugees on special Humanitarian Parole visas, but the emergency actions that were used to get them out of the disaster zone, are now keeping them from applying to become United States citizens right away.

Three-year-old Johnny and four-year-old Marie moved in with Liz and Joshua Daby of Rochester, New York less than two weeks after the earthquake. The Dabys also have two biological children, 6 year old Emma and 4 year old Josiah. Considering Johnny and Marie could be years away from becoming American citizens, the Dabys fear their family could be ripped apart if anything were to happen to them before the process is complete. “We have a plan for Emma and Josiah if anything were to happen to us but I don’t know right now what that would mean for these guys,” says Liz.

Lawmakers in Washington, are trying to change that. U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have introduced the Help H.A.I.T.I. (Haitian Adoptees to Immediately Integrate) Act of 2010 which would allow these children to apply for U.S. Citizenship immediately upon completion of their adoption.

Right now, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)  requires the Haitian children who entered the U.S. on Humanitarian Parole to remain in the country, in their would-be parents custody, before they are allowed to apply for citizenship.  The Help HAITI Act of 2010 would eliminate that two year wait. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York says that would ensure parents that their children will be allowed to stay in the states should they die or become incapacitated, “God forbid something happens to them while the child is going through this process – that child could be sent back to Haiti,” she says. “We want to make sure when these families adopt children from Haiti that they know these children are now theirs and they can become citizens right away.”

A version of the Help Haiti Act of 2010 has already passed in the House of Representatives.  Senator Gillibrand hopes for a full Senate vote on her version within the next two weeks.