New York Times Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21sun3.html

One very good thing the United States did to help Haiti after the Jan. 12 earth­quake was to declare that Haitians liv­ing here when the quake hit could apply for tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus, a spe­cial 18-month amnesty granted to ille­gal immi­grants who can­not safely return home because of nat­ural dis­as­ters or other reasons.

This was sup­posed to help Haitians help one another, swiftly and effec­tively. Undoc­u­mented immi­grants live in the shad­ows, tak­ing jobs at low wages, fear­ful of depor­ta­tion. If they were legal­ized and unafraid, they could look for bet­ter work or fur­ther their edu­ca­tion, and earn more to send to fam­i­lies in shat­tered Haiti, which acutely depends on remit­tances by its large diaspora.

The admin­is­tra­tion has been prepar­ing to receive protected-status appli­ca­tions from as many as 100,000 of the 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians believed to be in the United States ille­gally as of Jan. 12. But only about 37,000 have applied, and only about 4,200 have been approved. The six-month appli­ca­tion win­dow closes in July. The pace must pick up drastically.

Hait­ian advo­cacy groups say the main rea­son for the poor response is money. Appli­ca­tion fees total almost $500, a severe obsta­cle for working-class immigrants.

The head of Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices, Ale­jan­dro May­orkas, says his agency can’t elim­i­nate its fees, but it has the power to waive them for peo­ple who can prove they are poor. He has promised that his employ­ees will treat appli­cants with a “gen­eros­ity of spirit.” This would be a refresh­ing change for an agency noto­ri­ous for bureau­crats expert in find­ing a way to say no.

The cit­i­zen­ship agency must redou­ble its efforts to make the appli­ca­tion process sim­ple and speedy, rec­og­niz­ing that many of these work­ing poor lack doc­u­ments show­ing their need. There is a bur­den, too, on immi­grant advo­cates and Haitians them­selves to make sure appli­cants are well-prepared for inter­views — tak­ing along, if nec­es­sary, sim­ple affi­davits attest­ing to finan­cial need — so they can get work­ing papers as quickly as possible.