By Cheryl Lit­tle, Spe­cial to CNN

Editor’s note: Cheryl Lit­tle is the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Florida Immi­grant Advo­cacy Cen­ter, a Miami-based non­profit law firm that pro­tects and pro­motes the rights of immi­grants. For a look at the chil­dren of Haiti, watch CNN’s “Res­cued,” a doc­u­men­tary pre­sented by Soledad O’Brien at 8 p.m. ET Saturday.

Miami, Florida (CNN) — Marie, a Hait­ian mother, couldn’t have been more grate­ful. “Thank you God for TPS,” she recently told an attor­ney help­ing her fill out forms that will pro­tect her from depor­ta­tion. She was refer­ring to tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus, which will allow her to work legally, help Haiti and sup­port her two young chil­dren. It’s the sen­ti­ment that we hear most these days.

As long­time advo­cates, we at Florida Immi­grant Advo­cacy Cen­ter were grat­i­fied when the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity granted tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus to unau­tho­rized Hait­ian immi­grants after the cat­a­strophic earth­quake in Haiti. Tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus will allow per­haps 100,000 Haitians to legal­ize their sta­tus for the next 18 months.

They’ll be able get work per­mits and driver’s licenses and send more money to loved ones strug­gling in Haiti’s ruins. Such people-to-people help is one of the best forms of for­eign aid. Remit­tances encour­age Haitians to stay and rebuild Haiti, rather than attempt treach­er­ous sea voy­ages that more often than not end in tragedy.

Today, Florida Immi­grant Advo­cacy Cen­ter and other pro bono groups are work­ing furi­ously to help Haitians apply for tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus and warn them away from “raketè,” scam­mers who will rip them off. It’s a mam­moth job in South Florida, home of the nation’s largest Haitian-born population.

The six-page tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus appli­ca­tion includes com­pli­cated ques­tions and must be trans­lated for non-English speak­ers. Many Haitians also need help fill­ing out work-permit and fee-waiver forms. With­out a waiver, appli­cants ages 14 to 65 must pay $470 in fees and $50 for a younger child.

Frankly, tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus is the least our gov­ern­ment can do after decades of deny­ing Haitians just immi­gra­tion treat­ment. No pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion had granted tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus to Haitians despite numer­ous occa­sions when depor­tees would have been unsafe due to polit­i­cal con­flict or nat­ural dis­as­ters, con­di­tions that typ­i­cally trig­ger tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus. Indeed, we had been actively push­ing for tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus since four killer storms demol­ished 15 per­cent of Haiti’s gross domes­tic prod­uct in late 2008.

The his­tory of dis­crim­i­na­tory treat­ment goes back much fur­ther. Since Haitians started com­ing to U.S. shores nearly 50 years ago, they rou­tinely have been denied the fun­da­men­tal pro­tec­tions promised to refugees of vir­tu­ally every other nationality.

Finally more atten­tion is being paid to the need to help the Haitians. As a key neigh­bor, the United States needs to pre­pare for a long-term com­mit­ment in which U.S. Haitians play a key role.

Many of these Haitians wish to travel to sup­port rel­a­tives in Haiti and con­tribute to recon­struc­tion. But for Haitians with tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus, those trips could lead to dire con­se­quences. Though they may travel legally, some may face prob­lems com­ing back home and, thus, should con­sult with an attor­ney before leaving.

Many U.S. cit­i­zen and res­i­dent Haitians also are try­ing des­per­ately to bring rel­a­tives here from Haiti, but some face daunt­ing delays because of archaic immi­gra­tion processes. Given the sub­stan­tial moral and mate­r­ial help that Haitians in our coun­try offer Haiti, Home­land Secu­rity should find solu­tions to per­mit travel and expe­dite rel­a­tive reunification.

We are hope­ful, too, that Home­land Secu­rity will address con­cerns regard­ing Haitians who have arrived here since the earth­quake with no or improper visas. One glar­ing exam­ple is the dozens of Haitians who were flown here on mil­i­tary planes after the earth­quake, only to be detained. Many lost their par­ents, sib­lings and chil­dren; one of our clients lost his twin 9-year old daugh­ters. Vir­tu­ally all had U.S. cit­i­zen and law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dent rel­a­tives await­ing their release.

Their pro­longed deten­tion only exac­er­bated the ter­ri­ble trauma they suf­fered before flee­ing Haiti. Dur­ing their deten­tion, most showed signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety and post-traumatic stress dis­or­der. Yet Florida Immi­grant Advo­cacy Center’s attempts to get per­mis­sion for a psy­chother­a­pist to meet with the Haitians were repeat­edly rebuffed.

When every­one in the world was offer­ing to help the Haitians, Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment kept our clients in deten­tion for more than two months. They only released them after a front page New York Times story ran and the Haitians agreed to be deported when­ever ICE wants.

Hait­ian orphans also raise tough ques­tions. While many car­ing Amer­i­cans would like to adopt, there is real dan­ger that Hait­ian chil­dren may be traf­ficked or improp­erly sep­a­rated from their par­ents. For this and other thorny prob­lems, no easy solu­tions exist in the midst of Haiti’s crisis.

This cri­sis in fact has exposed cracks in our deeply frac­tured immi­gra­tion sys­tem. We know Haiti will not be ready for an influx of depor­tees when tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus expires in July 2011 or for a long time to come. Frankly, this coun­try wouldn’t have large pop­u­la­tions of immi­grants who need tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus if we adjusted immi­gra­tion flows to meet the real demands of its fam­i­lies and our economy.

The best solu­tion would be for Con­gress to pass a com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform that includes a legal­iza­tion plan and future immi­grant flows attuned to the needs of our labor mar­kets. The path to legal sta­tus should be offered, not only to Haitians, but also to mil­lions of unau­tho­rized immi­grants with­out crim­i­nal records, who pay taxes, raise U.S. cit­i­zen kids and have con­tributed to their com­mu­ni­ties for years.

Reform that cal­i­brates incom­ing immi­gra­tion flows to labor needs and ensures work­ers rights would raise wages through­out the U.S. economy.

Such immi­gra­tion reform could add $1.5 tril­lion to the nation’s GDP over 10 years, accord­ing to a study released in Feb­ru­ary by the think tanks Cen­ter for Amer­i­can Progress and Immi­gra­tion Pol­icy Cen­ter. Clearly, enforcement-only immi­gra­tion pol­icy is not enough. Piece­meal fixes have not worked. The United States needs a 21st cen­tury immi­gra­tion sys­tem that will ben­e­fit all Americans.

The opin­ions expressed in this com­men­tary are solely those of Cheryl Little.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/07/little.haiti.immigrants/