MIAMI — In a move mirroring Operation Pedro Pan in the 1960s, Catholic Charities and other South Florida immigrant rights organizations are planning an ambitious effort to airlift possibly thousands of Haitian children left orphaned in the aftermath of Tuesday’s horrific earthquake.
“We will use the model we used 40 years ago with Pedro Pan to bring these orphans to the United States to give them a lifeline, a bright and hopeful future,” executive director Randolph McGrorty said Thursday.
A temporary shelter in Broward County will house the children.McGrorty said Catholic Charities officials had been in contact with the Obama administration to assist in bringing the children from Haiti with humanitarian visas.
Operation Pedro Pan was launched Dec. 26, 1960, as part of a clandestine effort to spirit children out of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. By the time it ended 22 months later, 14,048 unaccompanied Cuban children ages 5-17 were brought to America, with the secret help of the U.S. government, which funded the effort and supplied the visa waivers.
The children were relocated across the country to archdioceses in places such as Colorado, Nebraska, Washington and Indiana. There, they went to live in orphanages, foster homes and schools until their parents could find a way out of Cuba.
One of those children was Gulliermo “Bill” Vidal, 58, now deputy mayor of Denver and manager of the city’s public works department.
“I think it’s a good idea, but I don’t know how many orphanages are available,” he said Thursday. “Clearly they need to be rescued. I just don’t know what kind of facilities they would be put into.
“These kids will be very young. It’s very traumatic to be pulled from your family and put somewhere with a different language, a different culture. But for us Cuban kids, it’s what kept us alive.”
Denver Post staff writer Mike McPhee contributed to this report.
