Miami Her­ald Editorial

The Bush admin­is­tra­tion con­tin­ued its pol­icy of cru­elty and bias to Haitians with the recent rejec­tion of Pres­i­dent Rene Preval’s request that undoc­u­mented Haitians be allowed to remain in the United States until their coun­try recov­ers from last summer’s dev­as­tat­ing storms.

In a Dec. 19 let­ter to Preval, Home­land Secu­rity Sec­re­tary Michael Chertoff acknowl­edged that the four storms that drowned low-lying parts of Haiti in mud and mis­ery had been “severe.” He reminded Preval of the tons of human­i­tar­ian relief sup­plies the United States has sent, includ­ing “food, water, bed linens, med­ical sup­plies, hygienic items and cloth­ing” to help the coun­try get back on its feet.

In the end, though, the rules for grant­ing Haitians Tem­po­rary Pro­tected Sta­tus are just too nar­row, and Haitians don’t qual­ify, Chertoff said. The rules were not so nar­row in 1998 when Hur­ri­cane Mitch tore through Hon­duras and Nicaragua, nor in 2001 when an earth­quake ripped through El Sal­vador. The United States granted TPS to more than 100,000 undoc­u­mented immi­grants from those coun­tries – as it should have. More than 10 years after those dis­as­ters, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion granted Hon­durans, Nicaraguans and Sal­vado­rans a renewal of TPS.

Why the admin­is­tra­tion chooses to treat Haitians dif­fer­ently is baf­fling. Chertoff’s detailed expla­na­tion of the “oppor­tu­ni­ties” avail­able to Hait­ian parolees and non-immigrant law­ful Haitians offers a clue.

The point is to dis­cour­age Haitians from leav­ing the island by not offer­ing any help to undoc­u­mented Haitians who already are here. How­ever, this is a ratio­nale that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Haitians send nearly $1 bil­lion in remit­tances back to Haiti, which accounts for almost a third of Haiti’s annual GDP. A pol­icy of aggres­sive repa­tri­a­tion makes mat­ters worse in Haiti, increas­ing – not decreas­ing – the like­li­hood of mass departures.

More­over, giv­ing undoc­u­mented Haitians some sta­tus through TPS increases the chance that they will work, pay U.S. taxes and send money back to rel­a­tives in Haiti. Then, there is the mat­ter of U.S. Coast Guard ves­sels that relent­lessly patrol waters near the Hait­ian coast. U.S. mar­itime vig­i­lance reduces the odds of an exo­dus from the island.

Con­sid­er­ing the wide­spread destruc­tion of homes, schools, roads, bridges and busi­nesses in Haiti, it is highly unlikely that enough repairs can be made in time to pro­tect many thou­sands of Haitians in the next hur­ri­cane sea­son. All of which adds up to a U.S. pol­icy that is need­lessly cruel or delib­er­ately biased. Haitians can hope that the next admin­is­tra­tion is bet­ter at apply­ing the rules fairly to all.

© 2009, The Miami Herald.