Anti Federalist
01-24-2010, 09:28 PM
To help Haiti's earthquake victims, change U.S. immigration laws
By Michael A. Clemens
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Troops. Food. Medicine. Money. Solidarity.
So far, the American response to the tragedy in Haiti has been exactly what you'd expect, and in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake that ravaged the nation on Jan. 12, such rapid assistance is precisely what is needed. But over the long term, there is another step, one that may be less obvious or popular, that we must take. It would vastly improve the living standards of the Haitian people, and if we had taken it earlier, it could have lessened the death toll of the quake.
We must let more Haitians come here. In fact, it's time to consider an entire new class of immigration -- call it a "golden door" visa, to be issued in limited numbers to people from the poorest countries, such as Haiti. It could be permanent or temporary, but that's less important than its core purpose. Our immigration law has traditionally had three primary goals: reuniting families, supplying employers and protecting refugees. But part of America's greatness is that in letting people come, the nation has pursued a fourth, unwritten goal: extending opportunity to those born in places without it. A golden door visa would simply recognize in law what the United States has done since its founding.
No human act can blunt the force of an earthquake, but the Haitian people's profound loss was not fundamentally caused by movements of the Earth. The reason that tens of thousands of people are dying in Haiti is, put simply, because Haiti is poor. Poverty means shoddy construction materials, lax enforcement of building codes, abysmal emergency response and low stocks of food and medicine. The earthquake shook the ground; the catastrophe came because most Haitians are poor and vulnerable.
Why are so many Haitians so vulnerable? Asking why people are poor is different from asking why a country is poor. Some have blamed Haiti's poverty on culture or religion; others cite the country's history of slavery and colonialism; yet others decry government corruption or decades of unfocused foreign aid. There are no simple explanations. The one thing we understand is that Haiti has been destitute and will continue to be so for a long time.
We do know, however, why many individual Haitians are poor. For a large number, there is a clear reason: Many have been willing and able to leave Haiti for American shores, but armed agents of the U.S. government have forcibly stopped them or deterred them from trying. If they had not been stopped, virtually none of them would have been as poor and vulnerable as they were on Jan. 12.
read the rest...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202274.html
By Michael A. Clemens
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Troops. Food. Medicine. Money. Solidarity.
So far, the American response to the tragedy in Haiti has been exactly what you'd expect, and in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake that ravaged the nation on Jan. 12, such rapid assistance is precisely what is needed. But over the long term, there is another step, one that may be less obvious or popular, that we must take. It would vastly improve the living standards of the Haitian people, and if we had taken it earlier, it could have lessened the death toll of the quake.
We must let more Haitians come here. In fact, it's time to consider an entire new class of immigration -- call it a "golden door" visa, to be issued in limited numbers to people from the poorest countries, such as Haiti. It could be permanent or temporary, but that's less important than its core purpose. Our immigration law has traditionally had three primary goals: reuniting families, supplying employers and protecting refugees. But part of America's greatness is that in letting people come, the nation has pursued a fourth, unwritten goal: extending opportunity to those born in places without it. A golden door visa would simply recognize in law what the United States has done since its founding.
No human act can blunt the force of an earthquake, but the Haitian people's profound loss was not fundamentally caused by movements of the Earth. The reason that tens of thousands of people are dying in Haiti is, put simply, because Haiti is poor. Poverty means shoddy construction materials, lax enforcement of building codes, abysmal emergency response and low stocks of food and medicine. The earthquake shook the ground; the catastrophe came because most Haitians are poor and vulnerable.
Why are so many Haitians so vulnerable? Asking why people are poor is different from asking why a country is poor. Some have blamed Haiti's poverty on culture or religion; others cite the country's history of slavery and colonialism; yet others decry government corruption or decades of unfocused foreign aid. There are no simple explanations. The one thing we understand is that Haiti has been destitute and will continue to be so for a long time.
We do know, however, why many individual Haitians are poor. For a large number, there is a clear reason: Many have been willing and able to leave Haiti for American shores, but armed agents of the U.S. government have forcibly stopped them or deterred them from trying. If they had not been stopped, virtually none of them would have been as poor and vulnerable as they were on Jan. 12.
read the rest...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202274.html