It took a 7.0 earth­quake, one of the worst nat­ural dis­as­ters in his­tory, for the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion to grant Haitians Tem­po­rary Pro­tected Sta­tus (TPS), which com­men­ta­tors long before said was mer­ited due to four storms which dev­as­tated Haiti in 2008.

Now an issue of equal impor­tance requires admin­is­tra­tion action, one on which stal­wart allies like Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Sen­a­tor John Kerry, Rep. Jim McGov­ern and other Com­mon­wealth con­gres­sional del­e­ga­tion mem­bers can help.

In 2007, the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity (DHS) cre­ated a Cuban Fam­ily Reuni­fi­ca­tion Parole Pro­gram bring­ing thou­sands of ben­e­fi­cia­ries of approved immi­grant visa peti­tions to the United States despite the visa back­log which keeps sim­i­larly– approved ben­e­fi­cia­ries from Haiti and else­where wait­ing inter­minably back home.

After the Jan­u­ary 12 quake, for­mer Rea­gan and Bush Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial Elliot Abrams urged increas­ing legal immi­gra­tion from Haiti to gen­er­ate mil­lions in addi­tional remit­tances. (“What Haiti Needs: A Hait­ian Dias­pora,” Wash­ing­ton Post, Jan­u­ary 22.) He noted the cen­tral­ity of remit­tances to Haiti’s econ­omy and accu­rately pre­dicted that pledges from donor nations would never materialize.

The Wash­ing­ton Post‘s edi­to­r­ial board then urged Pres­i­dent Obama to promptly parole (bring in) 55,000 Hait­ian ben­e­fi­cia­ries of already-DHS-approved visa peti­tions, not­ing that their remit­tances could sup­port ten times their num­ber in Haiti, and cit­ing as prece­dent our past parole of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Cuban and other refugees. It noted the 55,000 will oth­er­wise lan­guish sense­lessly another four to eleven years in Haiti due to the visa back­log as part of the bur­den on its gov­ern­ment and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, instead of being part of the recov­ery solu­tion as they should be. The World Bank con­firmed their analy­sis in its May 17 report, “Haiti Remit­tances Key to Earth­quake Recovery.”

But despite the president’s pos­i­tive actions and promise to lead in help­ing Haiti recover -—and at least ten more edi­to­ri­als from eight edi­to­r­ial boards, a unan­i­mous June 14 U.S. Con­fer­ence of May­ors res­o­lu­tion, a con­gres­sional let­ter, a let­ter from 75 orga­ni­za­tions, and other op-eds, all urg­ing the Pres­i­dent to promptly parole the 55,000 to help Haiti via the remit­tances they would gen­er­ate — the White House so far has been silent.

For exam­ple, the Globe called it “the most effec­tive way” to help Haiti recover” and the Los Ange­les Times cited the ongo­ing Cuban pro­gram and asked, “why the dis­parate treat­ment?” (“Help­ing Haitians help them­selves”). The Inquirer urged a Hait­ian Fam­ily Reuni­fi­ca­tion Parole Pro­gram like the Cuban one (“Don’t for­get Haiti”), and the Post ‘s lat­est edi­to­r­ial lamented the White House’s silence (“Pres­i­dent Obama could rapidly aid Hait­ian asy­lum seekers”).

“No con­gres­sional act is needed for the pres­i­dent to expe­dite the han­dling of these immi­gra­tion cases,” urged the Inquirer. “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.”

Offi­cials at the U. S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices appear will­ing to act. But they need White House approval, which is where the Commonwealth’s con­gres­sional leg­is­la­tion can play a key role. Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Chair­man John Kerry and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim McGov­ern are stal­wart cham­pi­ons who have stood by Haiti in the past. Read­ers are encour­aged to con­tact their offices to ask them to per­son­ally call the president’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, to urge the pres­i­dent to instruct DHS Sec­re­tary Napoli­tano to finally go ahead now and promptly parole the 55,000 Hait­ian approved ben­e­fi­cia­ries. They might pri­vately urge the Chief of Staff that if elec­toral con­sid­er­a­tions pre­vent this just now, DHS at least should be instructed to do this right after the Novem­ber election.

Their prompt parole is the most effec­tive, cost-free way to speed recov­ery by gen­er­at­ing a flow of addi­tional remit­tances into the indef­i­nite future, and the ongo­ing Cuban program’s ratio­nale — sav­ing lives at sea and fos­ter­ing orderly migra­tion – jus­ti­fies giv­ing similarly-situated Haitians the same treat­ment.
Read­ers of this arti­cle are there­fore encour­aged to ask Sen­a­tor Kerry, Rep. McGov­ern, and other Com­mon­wealth leg­is­la­tors to weigh in at the White House to urge the Pres­i­dent to instruct DHS Sec­re­tary Napoli­tano to parole the 55,000.

Steven Forester is Immi­gra­tion Pol­icy Coor­di­na­tor for the Boston-based Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH).

http://www.dotnews.com/columns/2010/president-obama-should-implement-most-effective-way-help-haiti