Haiti
earthquake 2 years later: Homeland
Security has failed
Haitian families
By. Steve Forester,
Thegrio.com
Since
Haiti’s devastating quake two years
ago today, many Republicans and Democrats
have been urging President Obama to take
a simple step to save lives and speed
recovery, one which would cost virtually
nothing, reunite families, and help
thousands in Haiti.
Ten
editorial boards have urged the Obama
administration to take the step, as have
nine U.S. Senators, the chairpersons of
the Senate Foreign Relations and House
Foreign Affairs committees,
Massachusetts Governor Deval
Patrick, the U.S. Conference of
Mayors, Philadelphia’s City Council,
87 members of the U.S. Congress in a
December 15 letter, eight Florida
Congresspersons including Senators Marco
Rubio and Bill Nelson in a December 22
letter, the Center for Global
Development and many others.
But for
two full years administration officials
have stalled them and Haitian American
leaders, saying the step is “under
consideration,” in effect a way of
saying “no.”
What’s
the proposal? Consider this: 112,000
people in Haiti are beneficiaries of
family-based visa petitions which the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
has already approved but who nevertheless
remain on a 3 to 10 year wait list in
Haiti, where many may not survive given
the dangerous conditions there.
As it has
for others, DHS
easily could and should create a Haitian
Family Reunification Parole Program to
expedite reunifying them with their
petitioning families here. DHS
has approved them for U.S. residency and
all have a U.S. family support network
in place. And for any who, after paying
a large fee to the U.S. Treasury, would
get a work permit and a job, their
remittances — the life-saving money
from Haiti’s Diaspora which is its
most important single source of
revenue — would help ten times their
number in Haiti.
A July
17, 2010 Boston Globe editorial
called this the “most effective way”
to show U.S. leadership on Haiti. And a
March 22, 2010 Miami Herald editorial
— the first of three by that paper
urging this, the most recent of which
appeared yesterday — asserted,
“There is no valid argument for
failing to move quickly on this
front.” That was 22 months ago.
The
United States has welcomed hundreds of
thousands of Indochina's, Kosovar and
Cuban refugees in recent decades, and
there is even more direct precedent for
creating this program for the Haitians.
In 2007, DHS
created the Cuban Family Reunification
Parole Program, under which since 2009
over 30,000 approved Cuban beneficiaries
have been paroled. Many of the
editorials now urging a similar Haitian
program have decried the “double
standard” in not also expediting
Haitian family reunification, Los
Angeles Times editors for example
asking, “Why
the disparate treatment?”
On November
2, DHS
Secreary Janet Napolitano was urged
by Massachusetts leaders, for the
third time in six weeks, to create a
Haitian Family Reunification Parole
Program to “mirror” the Cuban one.
That state’s 9-member black and Latino
Legislative Caucus wrote:
We
are deeply concerned about the
precarious status of many Haitian
children, elders and families as they
wait in Haiti to be reunited with their
families in the United States. As you
know, for many, the conditions in Haiti
since the devastating earthquake of
2010 remain unstable and even dangerous.
Establishing a Haitian Family
Reunification Parole Program (HFRPP),
modeled after the Cuban Family
Reunification Parole Program, would
alleviate this crisis by simply allowing
Haitians already approved for visas to
wait for them in the United States with
their families rather than in Haiti.
Their
letter cited the proposed program’s
“economic benefits,” including
“sending more remittances home to
Haiti to foster economic development
with greater speed.”
Massachusetts
Governor Patrick wrote urging Napolitano
to do this on September 22, as did that
state’s U.S. Senators John Kerry and
Scott Brown and U.S. Representatives
Michael Capuano, Barney Frank, Stephen
Lynch, James McGovern, Edward Markey
and John Oliver on October 25.
U.S.
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Chairperson Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen, a
Republican, with three other Republicans
and four Democrats including John
Conyers and Howard Berman, urged her to
do this back on March 8, 2010. And
RosLehtinen and still other Republicans
were among the 87 U.S. Congresspersons
including Senators Durbin, Cardin, Kerry
and Gillibrand, fifteen representatives
from New York and many others who on
December 15, 2011 wrote President Obama
urging him to instruct Secretary
Napolitano to take this action.
But the
White House has ignored these calls, as
it has the 14 editorials by the Washington
Post, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia
Inquirer, San Antonio Express
News, Los Angeles Times, Boston
Globe, Miami Herald, Newsday,
Star-Ledger, and Palm Beach
Post editorial boards and
resolutions by the City of North Miami,
Philadelphia’s City Council, and the
U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Virtually
every Congressional Black Caucus member
signed the December 15 letter. But
their appeal, like that of
Haitian-American leaders who’ve
implored the White House for two years
to authorize this, has so far been
unavailing.
In urging
this low-cost step, the authors of
“Migration as a Tool for Disaster
Recovery: A Case Study on U.S. Policy
Options for Post-Earthquake Haiti”
(Center for Global Development, June
2011) noted:
Rather
than waiting 3 to 10 years for a visa in
Haiti, beneficiaries could be paroled
into the United States where they can be
reunited with family and have employment
authorization.
The
proposal has merit not only for the
humanitarian purpose it would serve but
also to enable Haitians to send more
remittances home and foster economic
development with greater speed.
Instituting
a family reunification parole program
for Haitians is simpler than it may
appear, since it requires no
congressional action.
The
Cuban program’s rationale of saving
lives at sea and proving for orderly
migration applies with equal force to Haiti.
No
one would get a “green card” any
sooner — like the Cubans, they’d
just be able to wait for them here
w/their families rather than in Haiti.
And yet
another resolution urging the
Administration to do this is before New
York’s City Council today.
When will
the White House instruct DHS
Secretary Neapolitan to create this
program or at least start expeditiously
paroling the most vulnerable of these
DHS-approved, “legal” Haitians into
the United States?
Two days
after the earthquake, President Obama
promised U.S. leadership to help Haiti.
It will be promised again today. But
platitudes ring hollow to tens of
thousands of Haitian Americans still
waiting to be reunited with their loved
ones, who remain in danger despite
having been approved for U.S. residency.
It’s not too late for the
administration to give Haitians equal
treatment by expediting Haitian family
reunification to save lives and help
Haiti recover.
Since
Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, the
Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH)
has led efforts to persuade the White
House to create a Haitian Family Reunification
Parole Program.
Steve
Forester is immigration policy
coordinator for the Institute for
Justice &
Democracy in Haiti. If you’d like to
join this effort, please contact the
author at steveforester@aol.com.
www.ijdh.com
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