'They never looked for me.' Rockland family critical of US gov't after American woman was trapped in Haiti for most of her life
For decades Nagurska's family pleaded in letters and calls to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to let Nagurska come home.
More Stories
Nagurska Ducasse, 34, shared with News 12 how, at age 2, she was left in Haiti by her mother without her passport and other documents.
Her mother then returned to the United States and disappeared, along with Nagurska's personal documents.
She had no proof of citizenship and no way home - for 30 years.
For decades Nagurska's family pleaded in letters and calls to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to let Nagurska come home.
They furnished several other documents indicating Nagurska was an American citizen born in Nyack in 1990, including her birth certificate, her baptism certificate and government identification from Haiti.
Nagurska's aunt, Daniela Ducasse, tried to track down Nagurska's mother to help confirm Nagurska's citizenship.
"Based on what I obtained, even if they had found the mother, she didn't have the mental capacity to acknowledge [Nagurska was her child]," Daniela said, "because the last conversation she had with her mother, she did not remember her as a daughter. So I kept working."
The family then contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who had already learned of Nagurska's situation in a story by a LoHud reporter.
Schumer's team vetted Nagurska and reached out to the embassy to vouch for her.
Weeks later, Nagurska was issued a passport and boarded a flight home.
"We were finally able to connect Nagurska to the right agencies and resolved the issue," Schumer said at a press conference Wednesday. "Her citizenship was never in doubt."
Nagurska's family said their saga is not an example of the government working.
"The embassy never built a file to say, 'Look, this woman and her family have been coming here for years. Let's take a closer look into her case to get from Point A to Point B,'" Daniela said.
"It is the job of the U.S. government to know and acknowledge that they have a child of their own — that should have been in the country that had not been in the country — to find out where that child is," Nagurska said in French. "They never really looked for her to find out I'm an American living in Haiti. They never looked for me."
News 12 submitted questions to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince about procedures for tracking abandoned children in Haiti and why the embassy never resolved Nagurska's case until just after Sen. Schumer contacted the embassy.
The U.S. Department of State emailed News 12 late Friday stating the department prioritizes safety of U.S. citizens overseas and cannot comment on individual passport records for privacy considerations.
Nagurska and her aunt are now trying to help Nagurska's brothers, her husband, and her four children legally come to Rockland County to live.
They are also helping other Americans who have found themselves in similar situations.
Daniela Ducasse says once she posted about Nagurska's case on social media, she was overwhelmed with requests from other families seeking help to bring their loved ones home.
