Gallegly Assists in Romanian Adoption

A Camarillo family’s seven-week ordeal was nearly over Friday after their congressman intervened with immigration authorities to allow the couple’s adopted Romanian infant to return with them to the United States.

Shirley Suffern, a 46-year-old high school teacher with two nearly grown children, planned to pick up the paperwork to allow her to bring home 7-month-old Alyssa Lynette from the American Embassy in Romania on Monday morning.

“I’m still a little scared because I don’t have the piece of paper in my hand,” Suffern said from Bucharest.

Suffern and her husband, George, called Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) when the American Embassy in Bucharest refused to allow them to take home the malnourished infant they had legally adopted through the Romanian court.

“It’s unacceptable to have American citizens being treated that way,” Gallegly said Friday. “When people come to you and you’re their last shot, you don’t question, you just do everything you can to help.”

Gallegly found help from White House Chief of Staff John Sununu. Sununu contacted the attorney general’s office, which called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS told Gallegly that it would have papers ready at the American Embassy in Bucharest on Monday for Suffern.

The Sufferns decided to adopt a Romanian baby after seeing a segment on a television news program that showed sick and abandoned Romanian babies in orphanages. In March, they traveled to Romania, where they found a child in a state hospital and adopted her.

But American officials, concerned about another television report on baby stealing in Romania, stopped all immigration for infants with two parents on their birth certificate.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Suffern said. “But every time I look down at this baby, with her long lashes and dark hair and her precious grin, I know it’s all worth it.”