U.S. citizens were arrested in Port-au-Prince on Sunday for their alleged involvement in an illegal adoption scheme. (St-Felix Evens/Reuters)

The debate over international adoptions has intensified in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake and the arrest of 10 Americans for trying to take children out of the country without permission.

Some groups are urging a long moratorium on new adoptions from Haiti, saying there is too much chaos, and the risks of mistakes or child trafficking are too high.

Other groups fear any long-term clampdown will consign countless children to lives in institutions or on the street, rather than in the loving homes of adoptive parents.

Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption, said the arrests of 10 U.S. Baptists would probably undercut his organization's push to expand adoptions from Haiti.

"It was a critical mistake — the Haitian government has been very clear they did not want any children leaving without its express permission," Johnson said Monday. "Maybe the Americans thought they were helping 33 kids, but now there's going to be a much slower process and maybe even a ban on future adoptions — and that would be a tragedy."

The Americans, arrested Friday near Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic, are being held at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince while Haitian and U.S officials discuss their fate.

Americans may face trial in U.S.

Officials in Haiti say they are talking with U.S. diplomats about whether the Americans should be sent to the United States for prosecution.

Haiti's communications minister said they might have to face justice in the U.S. because Haiti's court system has been crippled and courthouses destroyed by the earthquake.

Even before the arrests, the Haitian government called a halt to new international adoptions. Numerous organizations have endorsed the moratorium, some of them citing UN guidelines recommending that at least two years should be spent tracing lost families before adoptions are considered.

"No matter how horrific the situation looks … the full process of reuniting children with parents and relatives must be completed," said Deb Barry, a Save the Children child protection expert.

The consequences of rushing to help children leave Haiti can be severe, according to the Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

In one case, the service said, a 12-year-old boy was allowed onto a U.S. military plane without documentation or relatives in the U.S. and is now in limbo while officials try to find out if he left family behind in Haiti.

In another case, a three-year-old boy arrived on a private plane with other orphans, even though the family who had been planning to adopt him had changed their mind and abandoned the process.

"It's an example of why it's important to be patient and thorough," said Olivia Faires, director of children's services for the Lutheran service. "It does add trauma, even in the midst of the chaos, to remove them from their customary surroundings."

Concern about overreaction

Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor who supports expanded international adoption, expressed concern about a possible overreaction to the arrests.

"If not all their paperwork was together, that doesn't seem to me the worst crime in the world," she said. "The Haitian authorities should be trying to help a lot of kids get out — both the kids in the process of adoption and others who appear not to have parents or relatives able to take care of them.

"It is astoundingly hypocritical that people, in the name of helping children, would close down adoption," she said.

Other groups, however, say international adoptions should not be promoted until other options are exhausted.

SOS Children's Villages, which is caring for the 33 Haitian children targeted by the arrested Americans, said international adoptions "should be avoided until every effort has been undertaken to reunite each child with her/his family or to provide suitable care within the country."

The organization's CEO, Heather Paul, said U.S. families might prove useful at some point in providing adoptive homes for children suffering medical or psychological problems from the quake. Meanwhile, she urged restraint.

"Sometimes Americans believe that children are better off in an American middle-class environment almost as a priority over being with their own family who are impoverished," Paul said. "I don't believe that. Children — they just love their families."