President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have pledged that the U.S. will do all it can to help Haiti following the devastating earthquake. But while getting assistance into Haiti right now is extremely difficult, there are two things the Obama administration could do immediately to help Haiti that are entirely within its control. It could grant "Temporary Protected Status" to undocumented Haitians in the U.S. -- so they can stay here instead of adding to Haiti's burden, work legally, and send home money to help their relatives -- and it could support the cancellation of Haiti's debts to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where the U.S. Treasury department has decisive influence. So far the administration has refused to move on either issue. Why the delay?
Even the Washington Post editorial board -- on foreign policy, not usually known for singing Kumbaya -- calls the administration to account on both issues:
On Temporary Protected Status for Haiti, the Post says:
More than 1 million Haitians, about a third of all adults, currently receive cash from relatives living abroad, most of them in the United States; those funds account for between a fifth and a third of Haiti's gross domestic product. Yet the Obama administration has balked at helping tens of thousands of Haitians currently here illegally by granting them temporary legal status, which would enable them to get work permits. This despite U.S. law that specifically allows the government to extend "temporary protected status" to undocumented immigrants if natural disasters or wars in their home countries make it impractical to deport them. Haitians should have received this benefit after four devastating storms struck the island in the space of four weeks in the fall of 2008. Other undocumented immigrant groups -- from Nicaragua, Honduras, Sudan and elsewhere -- have received temporary legal status; Mr. Obama should immediately extend it to Haitians so they can help their quake-stricken relatives at home.
The New York Times ("Help Haitians Help Haiti") agrees:
We wish [Obama] had added that his administration had found the courage, in this emergency, to take a basic but politically difficult step -- to grant temporary protected status to undocumented Haitians in the United States.
The Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald have also called for TPS for Haiti.
South Florida's three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress -- Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- often leaders in Congress for the most aggressive U.S. foreign policy -- have written to the Obama administration, urging the administration to grant Temporary Protected Status for Haiti:
"How much does Haiti have to suffer before Haitians in the United States are granted TPS pursuant to law?" said Lincoln Diaz-Balart Wednesday. "The reason TPS exists in the statute as an option for the president is precisely for moments such as this in Haiti."
On cancelling Haiti's debt, the Post says:
There's more the president can do, including pressing the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions and creditor nations to forgive $641 million in debt owed by Haiti.
Of course, the IMF and the World Bank are multilateral institutions, so it's not literally true that Obama can just order them to cooperate. But the U.S. controls a fifth of the voting shares of these institutions, and in practice its influence is far greater than that, because other major shareholders defer to the US. A senior IMF staffer once complained: "Why do people always say the IMF is unaccountable? We never do anything without checking with the U.S. Treasury Department."
But the IMF is currently moving in the wrong direction: instead of cancelling Haiti's debt, the IMF is trying to add to it. Jubilee USA says it's "dismayed" by an IMF plan to add $100 million to Haiti's debt burden. "Loans for disaster relief are totally inappropriate," says Neil Watkins, director of Jubilee USA.
If there were ever a time that these wrongheaded U.S. policies towards Haiti could be turned around, surely that time is now. You can weigh in on Temporary Protected Status for Haiti here and on debt cancellation for Haiti here.
UPDATE: The Obama Administration has granted TPS to Haiti.
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After the tsunami companies moved in, gave local politicians huge bribes to disown the dead and suffering people and sell the most beautiful beaches to some ressort.
After Katrina the first so called aid money Bush loosened after DAYS of doing nothing ended up privatizing the school system into a for profit organization. ALL teachers were fired whil most of them were sitting in camps and tents waiting for fresh water and food while the aid money went to a few parasites who would bacome richer by ruinig what little our schools still teach.
Just two examples of the vile practices of parasites who always crawl around the tiskest where people suffer the most.
If ANY aid has to have any meaning they have to be kept out of Haiti. Otherwise the poverty that led to so many deaths will just be made worse.
I am deeply skeptical of the current administration, wondering who really owns them. But it IS AN IMPROVEMENT!!! Which isn't saying much, is it?
I'm all infavor of the gov spending my tax money on providing disaster assistance, and long term development assistance.
But. Haiti's government is deeply corrupt. My guess is that a dollar of U.S. taxpayer money sheds 45% in the U. S. government, paying kickbacks to the Haliburtons among us, and the another 40% to Baby Doc's spiritual successors. It's a few dregs that wind up in the food bowls of suffering people.
For them, my guess is that literacy and birth control are the only hope.
SEO
Timmie Reilly
"-- the fact that the U.S. and other international financial bodies destroyed Haitian rice farmers to create a major market for the heavily subsidized rice from U.S. farmers. This is not the only cause of hunger in Haiti and other poor countries, but it is a major force."
"“American rice invaded the country,” recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading rice grower in Haiti in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many stopped working the land. "
Also, I could not believe that Haiti's economy employed more than half of the workers in agriculture.
so why ARE you trying to suppress discussion on the causes of the current situation in haiti?
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/13/f-haiti-earthquake-history.html
"Independent Haiti started with a devastated economy and infrastructure as well as the hostility of much of the rest of the world's rulers. The U.S. and Europe isolated Haiti. Soon it was an era of gunboat diplomacy, with Germany, France, England and the U.S. sending ships into Haitian waters to enforce their demands."
(((Haitians are so hardworking and successful when here in the US (a model to emulate within the US Black community) but "lost in their own homeland" from managing well their own destiny)))
if you're so afraid of being called a "racist", why not use internet connection, you obviously have, to take ten minutes and do a little research on a topic you are apparently not too well-informed on?
by the way, blacks in america do not need YOU to tell us who to emulate ....how about doing your part as an american citizen to make sure the constitution is adhered to? we got it from there.
Haiti will never be able to stand under this terrible weight.
To clear the wreckage, to rebuild, to regain their sense of hope and faith
again after so much trauma will take a very long time. Take the harness off
these poor, wretched people. They don't deserve any more pain inflicted on them.
They can't pay it.
No more Debtor's prison.
as a 'slippery slope', I say this:
Remember this?
It’s on the Statue of Liberty.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp
Haitians can't exactly walk into cvs and get birth control. They need money to make even the most basic medicines available.
if people wonder "why are they the poorest nation in the western hemisphere" - look into the history of that nation after they freed themselves, and how many other nations played a role in the situation there today.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/01/04/reparation_day/
Why $21 billion? It's the modern equivalent of the 90 million francs Haiti agreed to pay France in 1825, in return for official recognition of Haiti's sovereignty. For two decades following Haitian independence in 1804, the former mother country, with the support of the United States, Britain and Spain, enforced a crippling embargo, accompanied by a threat to recolonize and reenslave Haiti if indemnity wasn't paid for lost property -- i.e., slaves. Haiti, once France's richest colony, agreed to pay the price -- more than twice the value of the entire nation at the time -- but could only afford to do so using high-interest loans from French banks.
As for the foreign debt, they should pay it back when they can afford it without collecting interest until they can get the country together. Maybe forget it entirely because to pay it back would be impossible under the circumstances. In most cases it appears that the wealthy have been keeping the loans and screwing the people there as well.
Haitians in country illegally can stay
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011501920.html
My compliments to "eddexx" and "mylastread" - absolutely heartwarming, your comments.
I can already see/hear the headlines: Obama shamelessly gives Haitians Temporary Protected Status and forgives Haiti's national debt, over unanimous objections by Republican House as well as Senate caucus. In a move with obvious racial and political undertones etc. etc.....
What a pity.
NOSMAVAN
The Jubilee Act for Debt Cancellation and responsible lending has was introduced(both times) with strong bipartisan support. Even with conservatives such as Spencer Bachus