Philadel­phia Inquirer Editorial

With so much else on his plate, Pres­i­dent Obama can be for­given for not giv­ing Haiti the same atten­tion it received after a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake six months ago.

How­ever, there is a step he should have taken before now that would go a long way toward reliev­ing some of the addi­tional eco­nomic stress that the dis­as­ter dumped on the West­ern Hemisphere’s poor­est country.

Obama should ease immi­gra­tion rules so more Haitians can live and work in this coun­try and send money back to their home­land. Already such remit­tances are said to account for a third of Haiti’s gross domes­tic product.

There is ample prece­dent for Hait­ian immi­grants to receive spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion. The United States has opened its doors to hun­dreds of thou­sands of refugees over the years, includ­ing many who fled neigh­bor­ing Cuba. Help­ing more Haitians to emi­grate would rep­re­sent a sim­i­lar human­i­tar­ian effort.

There are about 55,000 Haitians who have already been approved for visas to join fam­ily mem­bers in the United States. But stan­dard pro­ce­dure requires them to wait from four to 11 years before they can come here and become legal U.S. res­i­dents. An addi­tional almost 20,000 Haitians are wait­ing for visa approvals.

No con­gres­sional act is needed for the pres­i­dent to expe­dite the han­dling of these immi­gra­tion cases. The sooner he does that, the sooner the Haitians will be able to find employ­ment in this coun­try that allows them to send help home. That aid over time will improve Haiti’s abil­ity to stand on its own legs with­out as much for­eign assistance.

The U.S. Con­fer­ence of May­ors has asked Obama to cre­ate a Hait­ian Fam­ily Reuni­fi­ca­tion Parole Pro­gram, which would be sim­i­lar to a pro­gram cre­ated by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush in 2007 to allow Cubans to come and live in the United States while await­ing their visa approvals.

Haitians deserve the same con­sid­er­a­tion. Dis­parate treat­ment by for­eign pow­ers of this coun­try birthed by rebel­lious slaves is one rea­son it is an eco­nomic bas­ket case. The earth­quake made mat­ters worse. But our coun­try promised to do all it could to help. Its next step should be to open its doors wider to Haitians.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100702_Editorial__Helping_the_Haitians.html