(+1) 647 931 2711Immigration DNA testing is required as proof of relationship when immigrating into many countries. It can be a DNA paternity test or any other relationship test. Evens Colas, a Haitian and a US citizen, has tried to bring his Haitian children to the US. Colas had to prove to the authorities that he was the biological father of his children. In other Western countries immigration procedures are also similar and adopt the same requirements for immigration.
Colas has travelled for many years between the US and Haiti to visit his children and his wife. Part of the immigration process to the US requires a DNA test to establish paternity. Colas took the immigration DNA test (in his case a paternity DNA test done following certain procedures) which showed that he was not really the biological father of niether of his two children. He took another paternity DNA test to confirm whether the first test had given the correct results. The second was also an exclusion of paternity.
Colas, a Palm Bay musician, is now desperate to bring his children away from the catastrophic effects of post-earthquake Haiti. His daughter marginally escaped death as she was lucky enough to be some 20 feet away from her school when it collapsed. The children live in Haiti amidst rubble, debris, contamination and disease with their maternal grandmother and Colas’ mother.
When the news of the earthquake reached him, Colas got all the paper work needed to bring the children over to the US as quickly as possible. He took his wife’s death certificate and his children’s birth certificate. But the children were not allowed to return with him back to the USA.
The paternity test results had already made the children not eligible to enter the US as Colas was not their biological father. However, the US immigration officers suggested a solution: that Colas adopt the two children in Haiti and then bring them to the United States.
The bureaucratic red tape just makes things impossible. His second wife, Sue, whom he met in 2006, supported him in his desperate quest to bring his children back. But two issues halted all progress: is paternity biological or legally determined. The US government required DNA testing to prove paternity. The Haitian government simply needed what was written on the children’s birth certificate. As far as the Haitian government was concerned, Colas’ children where his and he could take them back with him to the USA.
In order to adopt the children he may have to go through entangled legal procedures to get his name of the children’s birth certificate in Haiti (where he is recognized as the father) and then adopt them and have his name added again. The situation is rather desperate and many legal battles will ensue.
But such cases such as this may arise again elsewhere. Perhaps countries need to review and amend their immigration policies to avoid such tragic circumstances arising. The paternity DNA testing evidence as provided in by immigration testing may show the truth from a biological perspective but what about in cases where a birth certificate says otherwise?
