An Indiana family is hoping to get citizenship for their adopted child with special needs before it’s too late. Rebekah Hubley and her husband adopted Jonas, a nonverbal, blind, autistic child who has cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder, from Haiti in 2010, according to WSFA 12 Alabama. Since then, they have raised him in the home with their three biological children. Their oldest is blind as well.
Hubley immediately went to work securing a medical visa so Jonas could receive the care in the states he would not have access to in Haiti. After getting the visa approved in 2008, she continued to work towards finalizing the adoption while Jonas was with her family.
But after submitting the I-130 “Petition for an Alien Relative” document, Hubley was denied on account of not having submitted all of the required education documents, according to a local CBS affiliate. And on December 7, the family received a letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that shattered their world – informing them that Jonas would be deported to Haiti when he turned 18 in January 2024. Ms. Hubley maintains that the paperwork in question was on the back of the document.
In a December 8 letter posted on Facebook, Hubley addressed President Biden in Jonas’ voice, hoping to bring his case into the spotlight.
“You can’t grant me a voice in the conventional sense of how you might think, but you can give my story a voice. A voice that is louder and affects more change for other adopted children with disabilities than I could have ever had if I didn’t have special needs,” Hubley wrote. “Mr. President, I will not let you down! When you grant me my Christmas Miracle, I will use my voice to lobby for other kids just like me, stuck in a broken immigration system with no end in sight. I will use my story to effect positive change for others. When I become an American Citizen, I want my first act as a US Citizen to be going before Congress and telling them my story and lobbying for a provision for special needs adoptees caught in our immigration system.”
Hubley says once her fight is over, she and Jonas will continue to advocate for other kids facing similar challenges.
“It might not matter to immigration, but his life matters,” Hubley said. “He is a human being, and his life matters. I will prove to you his life matters. And, not if but when, he becomes a citizen of the United States, we will go before Congress and lobby for other kids who I am sure are just like Jonas who are stuck in this situation.”