The Foreign Service Journal, June 2010

26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 1 0 adopted by U.S. citizens when the earthquake struck. There have been more than 1,000 children brought in under that program. Getting them documented and ap- proved to leave the country also required quite a bit of co- ordination with the Haitian government. Proper international practice after a natural disaster is to wait until family reunification efforts have taken place be- fore deciding whether children need to be placed with adoptive families in their home country or abroad. USAID, along with UNICEF, the Red Cross, Save the Children and other groups, is working very hard on the ground to trace and reunify families. If no family-based solutions are found for the children in Haiti, I would expect that we will even- tually return to seeing intercountry adoptions out of Haiti. RM: In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, Ameri- cans there received a wide variety of services for which there was no charge. How does the bureau fund this criti- cal responsibility? A/S Jacobs: The protection of Americans overseas is a top priority for CA. It is something that we will fund and we will find a way to do. One way we do this is by dedicating a portion of the passport fee to providing emergency services for Ameri- can citizens overseas in crisis situations, such as the disas- ter in Haiti; helping Americans who have been the victims of crime while traveling or living abroad, or who have been arrested or imprisoned; and providing support to the fam- ilies of American citizens who have died overseas. We take great pride in this work. Many times overseas when we’ve been out there helping Americans in a crisis, diplomatic colleagues from other embassies call me to ask what we’re doing and how they should help their own na- tionals. So I think we have a well-deserved reputation. We will always fight to get the money we need, whether it’s for disaster assistance, repatriation, whatever it is. These costs are rising each year, with an estimate for this fiscal year of more than $300 million. RM: Thank you very much, Assistant Secretary Jacobs. ■ F O C U S