A young man from Haiti put his college education on hold in the U.S. in 2017 after he found a four-month-old baby in a pile of trash while visiting his family during winter break.
Jimmy Amisial, 27, had been studying communications at Texas State University in five years ago when he went home to celebrate the new year with his family in Haiti. While there, Amisial discovered Emilio Angel Jeremiah, now four years old, abandoned on the street.
“It was so sad to see him crying, and he had no clothes on,” Amisial told Fox 26. “He was naked and had fire ants crawling all over him.”
Amisial said bystanders refused to help the infant because of a Haitian superstition surrounding New Year’s Eve.
But that didn’t stop Amisial from immediately picking up Emilio and saving his life.
Hope to Haiti, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, reports Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
According to its website, the small island of 11.4 million people has an estimated 1.2 million orphans and vulnerable children, with about 7,000 children roaming the streets of its capital, Port-au-Prince.
“Every week, hundreds of babies and children are abandoned in Haiti shortly after birth,” the website reads.
The nonprofit reports mothers are forced to abandon their children every day for survival, often leaving newborns in hospitals, shop doorways, alleys, or dumped in the street.
Amisial, who often volunteers at orphanages, told Fox 26 that he spent the last four years struggling to support the child financially.
He said that the adoption process in Haiti often comes with expensive hidden fees — but that didn’t stop him from immediately trying to become Emilio’s legal guardian.
Haitian authorities and a judge came to his family’s house and offered to let him adopt the baby.
Amisial, only 22 years old at the time, accepted despite the expensive and arduous process that has taken years to complete.
Amisial said that he doesn’t regret the decision and the journey the two have been on.
“Whenever he’s talking to me saying like, ‘Oh Daddy, I need this, I need that, I need a tablet. I want you to buy me a bike,”‘ he said.
“So he has someone he can go to to ask stuff,” Amisial added. “I’m very proud of that.”
Amisial started a fundraiser, where supporters donated more than $60,000 to help him complete the adoption process.