There's an easy equivalency here. If the same church group showed up in New Orleans after Katrina, how would they be judged for trying to pull the same crap? I think the answer is clear - in that case, as many people think in the Haiti situation, rendering aid in the form of "adoption" was an extreme response and skipped past many less complicated and more direct forms of aid.
If anyone had found an "orphaned" kid after Katrina, the notion that the proper response should have been to smuggle them out of the state without proper paperwork so they could be offered up for adoption privately would have been laughed out of the courtroom. Everyone would have recognized it as a kidnapping/trafficing attempt, or at the least, a series of broken laws.
And it appears several journalists are beginning to take a second look at this group's leader, one Laura Silsby. It's beginning to look like the "rescue" group, as well as the Haitians and Dominicans were being duped by this woman:
Baptists Charged, former Silsby employee saw it coming - Akopsa - Open Salon
and this:
Laura Silsby, a local missionary to Haiti, left trail of financial woes in Idaho | Eyepiece | Idaho Statesman
All in all, it seems likely that Silsby saw an opportunity to make some fairly quick money - it's reported elsewhere that people were willing to pay upwards of $30,000 per child to adopt a Haitian "orphan". And with 33 kids in tow when they were caught trying to cross the border, that would have garnered her about $1 million gross, in 60 to 90 days, with the promise of even more to come.
Release the missionaries, if you must. They were most likely unwitting accomplices of this woman. But Silsby appears to be nothing more than a con-artist and crook. She needs to take the brunt of whatever legal action that Haiti decides is appropriate.