This is now in a lot of newspapers. According to the Washington Times the children were going to be temporarily housed in a 45 roomed Cabarete hotel, leased by the organisation until their permanent orphanage was built.
10 detained for crossing Haiti border with orphans
'The group described their plans on a Web site where they also asked for tax-deductible contributions, saying they would "gather" 100 orphans and bus them to the Dominican resort of Cabarete, before building a more permanent orphanage in the Dominican town of Magante.'
'The plan was never to go adopt all these kids. The plan was to create this orphanage where kids could live. And kids get adopted out of orphanages. People go down and they're going to fall in love with these kids, and many of these kids will end up getting adopted.'
I pause a bit when I read that last sentence: child cuteness really shouldn't be featuring too much in the serious 20 year (or so) task of bringing up a child, but maybe it was just an unthinking quote from a relative of one of those arrested. But I DO wonder, if these children were to be adopted from the DR and not Haiti, how much this organisation had liaised with CONANI for example.
Other reports here:
Haiti holds 10 US citizens over trafficking concerns
Haiti arrests US nationals suspected of child smuggling Obviously they only gathered 33 children and not the 100 they were hoping for.
However, it is clear that this was a planned visit to Haiti if you read what the organisation itself says, so not trafficking.
New Life Children?s Refuge
Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission
It seems like they thought they had permission from the DR government to import these children. But.........why no clearance from what is left of the Haitian government to export them from Haiti?