U.S. to Haitians: Good Luck, But Not Here

Update: Tell the Obama administration to fast-track review of visa applications for Haitian earthquake survivors below.

The question of whether to admit more Haitian migrants is starting to look more and more awkward for the Obama administration.

So far, we've heard Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ask Haitians (in language I imagine might have sounded more felicitous in a bureaucrat's brain) to refrain from "an impulse to leave the island and to come here."

The trouble is, as Michael Clemens notes over at AidWatch, the desire to leave Haiti for the U.S. happens to be the best strategy out of poverty for most Haitians, and particularly after the devastating quake, it’s a lot more difficult to tell earthquake victims, "Sorry, fresh out of room here -- we don't want you."

Last week, there was plenty of celebrating after Obama announced he was giving temporary protected status to Haitians already in the United States, and wouldn't deport people already here. As Clemens observes, though, while this is great, it's also not the biggest of deals -- after all, the U.S. only deports about 1,000 Haitians a year.

More pressing, he argues, is the fact that for the past 20 years, some 5,000 Haitians who don't successfully make their way into the U.S. are stopped and repatriated every year. What about them? And what about those Haitians in the U.S. with relatives stranded back home -- people like Dieula Celestin, whose brother and mother each survived the earthquake, but (thanks to federal immigration laws) remain separated from her in Haiti, jobless and without food?

Laying aside the broader debate about what immigration means for development policy, for now, there are three groups of people in particular whose visa applications advocates are pushing the administration to expedite: those who are relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents, newly orphaned and injured children. (Because the U.S. embassy in Haiti has, yes, been refusing to allow three critically burned Haitian children to be flown to Florida for treatment in a Miami burn center.)

Right now, the United States only lets in 21,000 Haitians a year, less than 0.2% of the overall flow of documented immigrants. Allowing more Haitians in -- and even quadrupling that number -- would hardly affect that flow. What's more, apart from helping individuals applying for entry, greater levels of immigration would also help widen the flow of remittances back to Haiti. (Currently Haiti gets about $2 billion per year in cash remittances from its citizens living overseas. And, as many including Clemens have argued, unlike foreign aid, remittances are more likely to go directly to families.)

There’s no mistaking the fact that immigration is one of the more divisive issues around. But if Congress can breach its partisan divide to help Haiti by allowing Americans get an early write-off for their relief contributions –- as it already has -– you'd think it could muster the strength to support the neediest of Haiti's refugees, as well.

Photo Credit: United Nations Photo