http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/nyregion/16haiti.html

By ANNE BARNARD

Within days of the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake in Haiti on Jan. 12, the United States gov­ern­ment declared that Haitians liv­ing ille­gally in the United States were eli­gi­ble for tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus, a spe­cial immi­gra­tion des­ig­na­tion that tem­porar­ily allows them to work here legally.

While advo­cates and gov­ern­ment offi­cials alike said that this was one of the most effec­tive ways to get help to needy quake vic­tims, the num­ber of appli­cants has fallen short of expectations.

Two months after the earth­quake, and a third of the way to the July dead­line to file for the spe­cial sta­tus, just 34,427 of the esti­mated 100,000 to 200,000 undoc­u­mented Haitians who were in the United States before Jan. 12 have applied, said the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity. The pro­tected sta­tus allows 18 months of legally working.

Char­i­ta­ble groups blame the lag on the appli­ca­tion fees, which total about $500. The aver­age monthly amount that Haitians abroad send to rel­a­tives in Haiti — a pil­lar of the country’s econ­omy — is just $150, accord­ing to the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank. On Mon­day, a broad coali­tion of char­i­ties called on the gov­ern­ment to make it eas­ier for appli­cants to have the fee waived.

Haitians who are granted the spe­cial immi­gra­tion des­ig­na­tion could add as much as $1 bil­lion to the Hait­ian econ­omy over the next three years, Hunton & Williams, a law firm for Catholic Char­i­ties Immi­gra­tion Legal Ser­vices, wrote in a let­ter backed by the Epis­co­pal bishop of Haiti and 49 Amer­i­can char­ity groups. The let­ter was sent to Con­gress and the United States Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices, which admin­is­ters the program.

Appli­cants for the spe­cial sta­tus are usu­ally work­ing class and, because they are work­ing ille­gally, may not be receiv­ing fair wages, said Debi Sanders, a gov­ern­ment liai­son for Catholic Char­i­ties Immi­gra­tion Legal Ser­vices. And the cost is not the only obsta­cle: To get the fee waived, appli­cants must sup­ply exten­sive finan­cial infor­ma­tion, a chal­lenge for work­ers who have “gone out of their way not to have any­thing on paper,” she said.

Ms. Sanders said the char­i­ties were opti­mistic that the gov­ern­ment would adopt their sug­ges­tion to make the fee waiver process sim­pler, because depart­ment offi­cials have told advo­cates pri­vately that they want to see more appli­ca­tions. Just 1,657 peo­ple have applied for waivers so far, said Luz Figuereo Iraz­a­bal, a spokes­woman for Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices. Only 696 were granted, partly because appli­cants offered lit­tle proof beyond say­ing, “I don’t have the money.” She said about 10 per­cent of the 34, 427 appli­ca­tions had been rejected because of sim­ple mis­takes like for­get­ting to sign a form. Her agency’s Web site, uscis.gov, lists com­mon fil­ing mis­takes.