One of my friends, a generous, feisty local businesswoman, has had a long, informal, foster-relationship with JD, 34, since he was an elementary school kid.
He was at the time removed from his emotionally unbalanced grandma’s home, and sent to live at Imeldahof.
JD grew up at the Children’s home, which we all know as a good place with little resources. The caretakers do their best, on a shoe-string budget, no time and no money for anything, but the minimum.
JD was originally born in Haiti and arrived here with an older sister and grandma, at age of eighteen months. A baby. He was issued no papers.
When the Children’s Home turned him out as a graduate, at age 16, he had nowhere to go but the street.
From my own experience I know, Imeldahof doesn’t secure, or cannot secure any legal papers for its residents.
I had a foster-child once, from that same institution, in Aruba since early childhood, and it took two decades, a great deal of money and the efforts of friends, to finally issue her a Dutch passport, and a few more years to also enroll her daughter at AZV.
We had no energy left to celebrate when the papers arrived.
As expected, JD living in the street, unable to work, fell into a bit of trouble.
Between trips to KIA he spent time in my friend’s backyard, in a small shack. He was sweet and naïve, arrested emotionally at the age of 14, when he started doing drugs. A child trapped in an adult body.
Then he served 3 years at KIA.
Again, he was turned out without papers, and still couldn’t work, because KIA is not about to procure any documents for inmates.
JD returned to my friend’s home off and on, he was grateful for the temporary shelter, in his sober days.
She reports she had over the years talked and written to everyone including all ministers of justice, past and present and all prime ministers past. She tried to mitigate the situation by calling many top officials, exploring treatments options, but nothing ever happened, nothing moved.
Last week JD was grabbed by GNC, and deported to Haiti.
That deportation decree was already waved once in 2012, but this time the prosecutor was fast and furious. JD called my friend from the airport on a borrowed phone to let her know, he was being boarded.
Just like that.
He left Haiti at eighteen months.
He has no Haitian papers, except his name.
Has been living in Aruba, always.
He has no one in Haiti, no family, no friends.
He doesn’t speak Creole, neither French.
He was deported in his flip flops, tee shirt and shorts, zero money in his pocket, no suitcase.
He called from the airport via an immigration officer and that one agreed to give him a little money, out of pocket as my friend promised to repay.
He is an addict, he is gay, he never worked, he has no skills, immature, never violent, never posed a threat to anyone.
How can Aruba act this way with total disrespect of his human rights and his dignity?
My friend appeared in court on Wednesday, trying to reverse the wheel of fortune.
The verdict will be read in two weeks.
Such heartless system, prosecutor, minister of justice, GNC, DIMAS.
If the deportation is reversed, JD will come back to Aruba, then Adopt an Addict, will have a solution for him, a space in the halfway home, and by then he perhaps will see the light. He suffered enough.
