Wash­ing­ton Post Editorial

THE U.S. CONFERENCE of May­ors, meet­ing at its annual con­ven­tion this month in Okla­homa City, did some­thing extra­or­di­nary. With no dis­sent, the may­ors called on Pres­i­dent Obama and Home­land Secu­rity Sec­re­tary Janet Napoli­tano to “promptly” grant entry to 55,000 Hait­ian visa can­di­dates with rel­a­tives in the United States, a mea­sure that would result in tens or hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in annual cash trans­fers flow­ing into Haiti’s gasp­ing econ­omy. And what was the response from the admin­is­tra­tion, which has pledged to do all it can to alle­vi­ate the human­i­tar­ian suf­fer­ing that befell Haiti in January’s earth­quake? Silence.

The issue here is a cohort of Haitians whose rel­a­tives live in the United States as cit­i­zens or per­ma­nent res­i­dents, and whose immi­gra­tion peti­tions have already been approved by the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity (DHS). In other words, they are on their way to the United States sooner or later any­way, once the visa back­log — the result of quo­tas set by Con­gress — is cleared. The main ques­tion is whether Haitians will face a wait for visas that can last from four years (for the spouses and chil­dren under 18 of legal res­i­dents of the United States) to 11 years (for sib­lings of U.S. cit­i­zens). Given Haiti’s tra­vails, they can and should be moved to the front of the line — if not by the admin­is­tra­tion, then by Congress.

There is a recent prece­dent. Under a pro­gram launched by DHS in 2007, the United States has granted entry to about 28,000 Cubans whose family-based immi­gra­tion peti­tions have been approved. In effect, they are allowed to wait here rather than in Cuba while the gov­ern­ment processes their appli­ca­tions to become per­ma­nent res­i­dents. And while Haitians would not enjoy the same legal sta­tus as Cubans, who are eli­gi­ble for green cards a year after arriv­ing, the admin­is­tra­tion could grant them “tem­po­rary pro­tec­tive sta­tus” on arrival and allow them to work. With sim­i­lar effect, Con­gress could adjust its quo­tas to expe­dite the issuance of visas to Haitians.

The may­ors’ res­o­lu­tion was remark­able because their cities — not the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, not the states — might bear the costs asso­ci­ated with an influx of Hait­ian immi­grants. Many of the immi­grants would be low-skilled work­ers with no mas­tery of Eng­lish. In the hand­ful of places where most would set­tle, ser­vices, schools and bud­gets would be stretched — even as munic­i­pal­i­ties face high unem­ploy­ment and ane­mic bank accounts.

Nonethe­less, the may­ors rightly cited the pro­found suf­fer­ing in Haiti, the West­ern Hemisphere’s poor­est nation, and the moral imper­a­tive fac­ing Amer­ica, the richest.

The Obama admin­is­tra­tion was quick and force­ful in direct­ing per­son­nel, resources and pub­lic atten­tion to Haiti after the Jan. 12 quake, and it has pledged large amounts of aid to rebuild the shat­tered coun­try. Still, no aid pro­gram would help Haiti as much as admit­ting the tens of thou­sands of Haitians caught in the visa back­log. Remit­tances to Haiti amounted to about $1.5 bil­lion last year and may reach $2 bil­lion this year. Mr. Obama could fur­ther strengthen that lifeline.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062504520.html