Thread: Haitians in US hope crisis leads to legal status

Haitians in US hope crisis leads to legal status

By The Associated Press
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9:14 a.m.

MIAMI — Haitians in the U.S. illegally have for years pleaded for the same treatment the federal government gave Central Americans in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch devastated their region.

They want temporary legal status allowing them to stay, work and send money home. Each year they have been denied - despite four tropical storms in 2008, floods almost every other year since 2000 and ongoing political strife.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano temporarily halted deportations of Haitians Wednesday but advocates want a longer-term solution.

Thousands of Haitian immigrants hope Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake will push Washington to honor their request. About 30,000 have orders to leave the U.S. Others are appealing their cases. Many more live underground.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... al-status/

It was a mistake to give TPS to Salvadorenos TWELVE YEARS AGO. They are all still here. The TPS program has a major flaw....it is not temporary. The whole program should be scrapped, or else redesign it to have a thirty to sixty day limit. What irks me is that the entire country is not destroyed due to an earthquake or storm....only portions are destroyed. People in the destroyed part of the country should be relocated to other parts of the same country.

In the case of Haiti, only Port-au-Prince is in bad shape. They do need aid, but other parts of the country have not been destroyed. People being deported should not be deported to that part of the country.

About 30,000 have orders to leave the U.S. Others are appealing their cases. Many more live underground.

ALL of those people who have been here have been WORKING, they need to take their skills back home and help rebuild instead of demanding to stay here.

It would be insane to grant TPS to Haitians who have been here illegally. Deport them back to rebuild their nation.

It just happened

What just happened? They got TPS?

Might be "temporary", but they just got legal status from our fearless leader: O.

By JOEL MILLMAN
The U.S., Canada and France suspended the deportation of undocumented Haitians and are preparing for what could be a mass exodus of refugees in the wake of Tuesday's earthquake.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday the U.S. would halt the removal of Haitians designated for deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A total of 30,000 Haitians were designated for removal through last year, some of whom remain in ICE detention facilities.

But that deals only with Haitians already in the U.S. As refugees take to the sea—the normal reaction to turmoil throughout Haiti's recent history—officials in the U.S. and other countries will have to grapple with how to deal with a new wave of refugees, most of whom will arrive without visas.

Democrats and Republicans from Florida's congressional delegation joined immigration activists calling for the White House to grant Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to Haitians in the U.S., which would allow Haitians who enter the country illegally to remain, on humanitarian grounds.

"The combined destruction from [Tuesday's] catastrophic earthquake and the previous storms clearly makes forced repatriation of Haitians hazardous to their safety at this time. We strongly believe that it is for such a situation that Congress created TPS," Republicans Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, the Cuban-American brothers who represent adjoining districts in Miami, wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama. They were joined by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, another Republican from Florida. Democrats Alcee Hastings and Kendrick Meeks, whose district includes Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, also demanded TPS status for Haitians.

TPS has been offered to victims of natural disasters before, particularly to refugees from El Salvador in 2001, as well as from Nicaragua, Honduras, Somalia and Sudan. But TPS has never been granted to Haitian refugees, despite calls for relief following hurricanes and civil strife, mainly because successive White House administrations have feared it would trigger a stampede of refugees seeking haven in the U.S.

"If not now, when?" TPS-supporter Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said in a statement Wednesday.

Religious leaders also called for TPS for Haitians. "If this is not a slam-dunk case for temporary status, I don't know what is," said Kevin Appleby, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Catholic organization noted that legal status and employment, in whatever their country of residence, could allow millions of Haitians abroad to play a role rebuilding their homeland through remittances and other contributions.

Most of the two million Haitians living abroad reside in the U.S., Canada, France or the Dominican Republic.

Canada, with some 150,000 Haitian-born residents, says it is working to fast-track Haitians seeking refuge. On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney were discussing ways to ease refugee rules to allow more Haitians into Canada.

Like the U.S., France and the Dominican Republic have suspended expelling illegal immigrants from Haiti. The Haitian community in France numbers about 80,000, French officials estimate. That doesn't include Haitians living in the Caribbean departments—Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin and French Guiana—which are considered part of France proper. Suspending deportation may encourage more Haitians to relocate to these places, particularly Guiana, where an estimated 70,000 Haitians have arrived in the past decade, mostly through neighboring Suriname.

The Bahamas is bracing for an influx of Haitian refugees on the island of Inagua, the part of the archipelago that lies closest to Haiti. On Thursday, immigration officials rushed tents, medical supplies and policemen to Inagua and beefed up personnel at detention centers. Officials had been slated to repatriate 72 Haitians on Wednesday, but those deportations have been suspended until regular air service resumes.

Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 55158.html

There should be time limits on TPS. Round up all the Salvadorans and send them back, temporary does not mean 12 YEARS! They've been here long enough, now send them back to make their country better.

Put a time limit on the Haitians too! Why is is OK for Americans and other rescuers from around the world to work to rebuild Haiti, but not their own people? Once the mess is cleared out, rescind the TPS and send them back to help rebuild their country.

Originally Posted by miguelina

There should be time limits on TPS. Round up all the Salvadorans and send them back, temporary does not mean 12 YEARS! They've been here long enough, now send them back to make their country better.

Put a time limit on the Haitians too! Why is is OK for Americans and other rescuers from around the world to work to rebuild Haiti, but not their own people? Once the mess is cleared out, rescind the TPS and send them back to help rebuild their country.

You're exactly right M! The civil war ended almost 20 years ago in El Salvador, and yet these people are still here under TPS!

There is nothing temporary about TPS! The more apt term is indefinite protective status!