This is a preview of the information gathered for the immigration section in our new Diary, Justice Not Charity. The official diary will start Sunday. We branched out from the original series. The idea is simply put to not abandon Haiti again-to demand justice.
Join us in the comments for today's news roundup and more. Action alerts and links below the fold.
"The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice."
The Uses of Haiti last paragraph pg. 307
What, then is to be done? Speaking of events since the 1991 coup, Noam Chomsky has noted that "honest commentary would place all of this in
the context of our unwavering opposition to freedom and human rights in Haiti for no less than 200 years." The first order of business, for citizens of the United States, might be a candid and careful assessment of our ruinous policies towards Haiti. Remorse is not a very fashionable sentiment. But for many, old-fashioned penitence might be the first step towards a new solidarity, a pragmatic solidarity that could supplant both our malignant policies of the past and the well -meaning but unfocused charity that does not respond to Haitian aspirations. The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice.
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Immigration:
History from 1991 to current. With Action Alert.
Immigration policy and complicity of the press: The Uses of Haiti pg. 217-218:
(speaking of Guantanamo Bay)
"U.S. Base is an Oasis To Haitians," reads the headline of a November 28, 1991, article in the New York Times, often termed our national paper of record. The perspective of Yolande Jean, interned there for eleven months, is somewhat different from that of the Times:
We were in a space cordoned off with barbed wire. Wherever they put you, you were meant to stay right there; there was no place to move, The latrines were brimming over. There was never any cool water to drink, to wet our lips. There was only water in a cistern, boiling in the hot sun, When you drank it, it gave you diarrhea...Rats crawled over us at night...When we saw all these things, we thought, it's not possible, it can't go on like this. We're humans, just like everyone else
.
(The U.S kept Haitian's out by calling people that were escaping death squads economic refugees. They were obviously political refugees. They sent Haitians back while welcoming Cubans. The Statue of Liberty's saying is unique for Haitian's: we do not except Haitians.)
The Uses of Haiti pg. 239.
Another lawyer puts it succinctly: "By treating Haitian's differently than any other refugee group, the U.S. government has created a two - track asylum process-one for Haitian's and one for everyone else."
The Uses of Haiti pg. 220
The U.S Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has long argued that Haitians are "economic refugees, "fleeing poverty. For ten years, including the last four of the Duvalier dictatorship and six years of military juntas, the United States, in defiance of international law, forcibly returned Haitian refugees to their country. This process was the result of an arrangement, brokered in 1981, by which the government of Jean-Claude Duvalier permitted U.S. authorities to board Haitian vessels and to return to Haiti any passengers determined to have violated the laws of Haiti. The United States granted asylum to exactly eight of 24,559 Haitian refugees applying for political asylum during that period.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1991 coup with the international spot light on Haiti the U.S. suspended that policy for 2 weeks. In this period 1,500 Haitians had already died and military repression was at full force in Haiti. However, that did not stop George Bush SR on November 18, 1991 from resuming the forced repatriation of Haitian refugees without as much as an interview Haitian's would be returned to Haiti.
(pg. 221)
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expressed, the following day, his "regrets that the U.S. Government has decided to proceed unilaterally and return a number of asylum seekers to Haiti."
Some human rights organizations spoke out about Bush's decision which amounted to a death sentence for many Haitian refugees. A few organizations sued on behalf of Haitian Refugees. However the Rehnquist Court upheld Bush's shameless policy.
There was little public outcry about this racist and shameless policy, but it did lead to the Guantanamo compromise. So we began taking Haitians to a Guantanamo naval base and detaining them there. The conditions were bad. They were held in tents or whatever could be used as shelter (that sounds depressingly similar to how homeless Haitians are living now), there were complaints about rats, scorpions, snakes and inadequate hygiene facilities.
But the biggest concern voiced by the Haitian refugees was abusive treatment by their U.S. hosts. While access to the detainees was restricted and difficult to get The Nation, one of the only papers that didn't simply parrot the militaries talking points, was able to get access. Ingred Arnesen of The Nation spoke with a detainee that had been held for over a year(The Uses of Haiti, pg. 222):
"Since we left Haiti last December we've been treated like animals. When we protested about the camp back then the military beat us up. I was beaten, handcuffed and they spat in my face. I was chained, made to sleep on the ground. July, that was the worst time, We were treated like dogs, no like humans,"
This brings to mind a couple of Proverbs:
tout moun se moun — every human being is a human being(Aristide)
Nou pa moun, we're not people (Avila shared this very sad one)
The things that people have to ask for is heartbreaking. The fact that Haitians have to tell us that they are human? Makes me feel that we are a bit less human. It also reminds me of something I heard in Black kosrecently:
Many people don't remember that one of the first placards carried in the civil rights movement were sign reading "I AM A MAN". Ponder that.
in The Uses of Haiti Paul Farmer points out that even people that are advocates for Haitians and disagree with the policy went along with the narritve set by the government. They presented the issues the Refugees had at Guantanamo as being a natural consequence of bureaucracy rather than (pg.243) "active, malignant harassment."
(pg.243)
Narratives from the powerful, including their journalistic versions, inevitably reveal what Noam Chomsky has called "necessary illusions"; to partake fully in the "system" as a professional of any sort is to remain to some extent accountable to it. And so the conclusion of one of the Haitians' lawyers in not surprising: "We need to convince the Clinton people what we want is reasonable and cost-effective." No point, apparently, in convincing the Clinton people that the events on Guantanamo are an abomination and a crime. Journalists know this; lawyers know this.
In their earnest efforts to convince the empowered that their solution was "reasonable and cost-effective," the Haitians' advocates are misrepresenting Guantanamo. They are making the naval base resemble a sanatorium-a misguided public health intervention-when in fact it represents a much more malignant expression of our long-standing policies toward Haitians.
(This is a good point. Because our policies towards Haiti are so horrible that they are unbelievable-and it is hard to convince people what is happening. It is easy to come across as a article or an extremist when simply stating factual information about our policies towards Haiti. I think that in order to be effective advocates for Haitians we are going to have to address this topic and see how best to spread awareness without watering the information down to the point of distorting it.)
By May of 1992 Guantanamo was overflowing-Bush's response was to issue an executive order, from his vacation home. He ordered that Haitian's and their boats to be returned to Haiti; the AG however could decide that a refugee could not be returned without his consent. And in keeping with the spirit of our policies towards the AG did this zero times and all Haitian refugees were returned to Haiti.
The Uses of Haiti Pg.225: By the summer of 1992, Haitians under the gun understood that they would find no safe haven outside of the country. Haiti resembled more and more a burning building with no exits. The Bush administration's actions-denying to the refugees legal counsel or a hearing, preventing press coverage of the conditions of the detainees-served to reinforce widely-held beliefs that Haitians had been singled out for racist and exclusionary treatment.
Duke Austin , Special assistant to the director of congressional and public affairs at the INS did not understand the fuss over the treatment of HIV positive detainees: (pg.132)
"They're gonna die anyway, right?"
(Pg.231)
Outcry over Guantanamo came late, but it eventually became an issue in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. Prior to the adaptation of the cynical RealPolitik of President Clinton, the official platform of the Clinton-Gore ticket qualified George Bush's treatment of the Haitian refugees as "inhuman." One of the planks, called simply, "Stop the Forced Repatriation of Haitian Refugees," read as follows:
-Reverse Bush Administration Policy, and oppose repatriation.
- Give fleeing Haitians refuge and consideration fro political asylum until democracy is restored to Haiti. Provide them with safe haven, and encourage other nations to do the same.
Great help was on the way, right? Clinton's proposed policy was not very popular. (pg, 232) The Orlando Sentinel claimed that there could be huge problems if a flood of Haitians arrive in Florida. This was one of many articles decrying the Haitians are coming, don't let Clinton change the policy.
Public opinoin was against Haitians and there were warnings from the press that an immigration backlash was coming.
The Clinton Administration was aware of this. This is how a lawyer representing Haitian Refugees saw it: (pg.240)
"[Department of Justice] Officials indicated that they still had no position as to whether the [Clinton] Administration would be defending the Guantanamo policy in the trial scheduled for March, However, they make it clear that if they decide to defend it, they believe they would be on the right side of public opinion because the public doesn't care about Haitians with HIV."
I think they were dead right.
The policy of detaining Haitians is not new:
(pg.241)"Although the seventies were a time when immigrants in general came under attack , immigrants other than Haitians were not detained simply because of their nationality; Haitians, however, were rounded up and placed in federal "detention centers" that were in fact concentration camps. Haitians were portrayed as illiterate, superstitious, disease-ridden and backward peasants."
So of course once Clinton discovered that public opinion was against letting Haitians in he began backpedaling. After Inauguration Clinton stated he would continue his predecessor's policies. And he did...
(pg.35)
During the presidential campaign, Clinton bitterly assailed George Bush's cruel Haitian policies, particularly his harsh treatment of refugees. clinton moved quickly to change these policies as he took office, harshening them still further by extending the (flatly illegal) blockade on Haiti to prevent refugees from escaping the mounting terror-all for humanitarian reasons; the goal was to save lives. Those who fled remained "economic refugees." Clinton's increased brutality proved to be a grand success. Refugee flow, which had reached over 30,000in 1992, sharply declined under Clinton's ministrations, to about the level of 1989, before the decline under Aristide.
So have things changed in 2010? There is one positive change President Obama did the right thing and approved Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitians. However there are problems with this because it costs about $500 to file and the applications are confusing. This is a barrier for Haitian refugees.
Our immigration policies still remain racist and hard to navigate.
TheyNYT reported Haitian survivors being jailed instead of helped once they arrived:
Almost at random, it seems, immigration jail was the ad hoc solution for these 30 survivors and for others still hidden in pockets of the nation’s sprawling detention network. Some of the 30 have already been transferred to more remote immigration jails without explanation.
This seems to have been corrected but it is hard to find news on the topic to be sure.
IRIN, HAITI: Dying to get out:
So far, however, the government has been far less generous in granting humanitarian parole to Haitians recovering from the 12 January earthquake.
On 18 January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would extend humanitarian parole on a case-by-base basis to children already in the process of being adopted by US citizens.
snip
“The numbers are ridiculously small given the scale of the calamity,” said Ira Kurzban, a Miami-based attorney who has been involved in Haitian affairs since the 1970s.
n February, legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress that would extend humanitarian parole to 55,000 Haitians whose immigration applications were approved before the earthquake but who face the prospect of waiting years before gaining entry.
snip
Haiti advocates are also pushing for a more generous humanitarian parole policy for those in life-threatening circumstances, a classification that admittedly could include hundreds of thousands of people. Jayne Fleming, a human rights lawyer from San Francisco, travelled to Haiti in March with a team of lawyers and doctors to interview those who might qualify. They spoke to widows unable to feed their children, orphans with relatives in the US, individuals with “extreme” medical needs, and a frightening number of rape survivors. She is returning to Haiti later in the month to finalize parole applications for 52 of them.
“There are people in Haiti right now who will die if they don’t get out,” she said. “Those are the ones we see as eligible for humanitarian parole.”
Seventy international, national, and local organizations, joined by three individuals, wrote DHS Sec. Napolitano today urging broad Haitian immigration relief. The letter was organized by the Washington, D.C. office of Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
What can we do?
Help for Haitians
Haiti's rainy season is causing misery to millions whom the earthquake made homeless, and the hurricane season looms. When will the Obama administration bring in the 55,000 beneficiaries of already-approved visa petitions? They're already in the pipeline. Their remittances would do more to help Haiti recover than 15 separate aid bills.
All South Florida members of Congress should support HR 4616, which would grant the visas, and Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, is to be applauded for doing so.
STEVEN FORESTER, Miami Beach
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/...
We have an Action Alert:
Action Alerts: (For a more detailed version, click here.)
Immigration
Alert: Haitians in America must file for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by July 20th. Institute For Justice and Democracy in Haiti has launched a new website to help:
This site will make it easier for the hundreds of lawyers and law students who offered their services after Haiti’s earth quake to find local volunteer opportunities with organizations that are trying to meet the needs of eligible Haitian immigrants to apply for TPS before the deadline,” said Brian Concannon, Jr., Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). “It will also facilitate the sharing of legal research and other information among the providers themselves.
Read Deoliver47's action diary calling for pressure to be applied to congress to relax the caps for Haitian visa applicants. Allie123 found an easy way to fax or e-mail congress using existing templates and form letters. Frisco wrote a letter to President Obama and gives permission for it to be used as a template by others.
RE: Open our doors to Haitian refugees
Mr. President,
I am writing to implore you to work with Secretary of State Clinton and with the Congress to provide relief in expediting "green card" processing for Haitian immigration applicants caught up in the horrible aftermath of the 12 January earthquake that so devastated that country. I am further asking that you work with Congress to temporarily raise the limits on Haitian immigration levels for 2010.
These two actions would have the effect of reducing the on-site relief requirements in Haiti and providing funding for relief aid and rebuilding in the form of funds sent back to Haiti by members of the Haitian diaspora (currently estimated to be about 25% of Haiti's normal GNP).
With the impending rainy season nearly upon them, Haitians are facing a turn from horrendous living conditions to **unlivable** - with rain, mud and waste running in the streets and ditches throughout the tent & tarp "cities" that are currently everywhere in that nation.
Please help, Mr. President. The time for action is RIGHT NOW. Thank you.
Regards,
New America Media has an article about the work lawyers from Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti and others are doing to help Haitians who want to come to the U.S. and qualify for humanitarian parole: Haitians Hope for Humanitarian Parole. We can help by asking our senators, representatives, Department of Homeland Security, State Deptarment, immigration committees, and the President to open our doors to Haitian refugees.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
202-647-4000
Urge Secretary Napolitano to Reunite Haitian Families here.
Urge Your Legislators to Reunite Haitian Families here.
Immigratioin Committee Contact information, here.
Additional Action Alerts:
TransAfrica Forum
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
Stand up and be counted (Partners in Health)
HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE ACTION ALERT
Update March 11: allie123 has finished a detailed list of contact information for the committees, subcommittees, offices, and office holders who have influence over these policies. She has made the source code for this list available here. |
CNN, Immigration reform needed for U.S. economy and for Haiti quake relief
Miami, Florida (CNN) -- Marie, a Haitian mother, couldn't have been more grateful. "Thank you God for TPS," she recently told an attorney helping her fill out forms that will protect her from deportation. She was referring to temporary protected status, which will allow her to work legally, help Haiti and support her two young children. It's the sentiment that we hear most these days.
As longtime advocates, we at Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center were gratified when the Department of Homeland Security granted temporary protected status to unauthorized Haitian immigrants after the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. Temporary protected status will allow perhaps 100,000 Haitians to legalize their status for the next 18 months.
Crossover DreamsA blog on migration by writers for IPS, a global non-profit newswire
Place Saint Pierre:
Rain was general all over Port-au-Prince. It was falling last night, and the night before, and the night before that, falling on the broken National Palace, on the collapsed roofs of houses in Turgeau and on the stony green hills above the city, softly falling on the United Nations logistics base by the airport and falling softly on the whitecaps of the bay. It plunged down the gutters of the steep Route de Kenscoff in torrents powerful enough to generate hydroelectric power. It fell on the living and the dead. In the little hidden pools it formed, hordes of mosquitoes bred and emerged to torment the living. It fell on the just and the unjust. But it fell hardest on the camps.
Where the Route de Kenscoff enters Pétionville, right across from the Mairie (City Hall), the broad plaza of Place Saint Pierre became a camp for people displaced by the January 12 earthquake. Jean François Colas heard the thunder and the rain falling onto his tent there.
Washington Post, To help Haiti's earthquake victims, change U.S. immigration laws:
After the earthquake, the Obama administration quickly suspended the deportation of Haitians already residing illegally in the United States (a population estimated at 100,000 to 200,000) for 18 months. That's a wise and welcome step, but an insufficient one. The United States has deported only around 1,000 Haitians per year recently, so a brief halt will make a limited difference in who lives where. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized Thursday that the new policy will not apply to Haitians seeking to come here now. "Our ordinary and regular immigration laws will apply going forward, which means that we are not going to be accepting into the United States Haitians who are attempting to make it to our shores. They will be interdicted. They will be repatriated."
Yet Haitians willing to emigrate today would typically experience vast and immediate increases in their standard of living and security -- a goal the administration no doubt supports. That is why so many have been willing to leave Haiti, braving ocean blockades and other risks, even before the quake. Between 1982 and 2009, the U.S. Coast Guard stopped 114,716 Haitians on their way to the United States, forcing them to go back, and such unsuccessful attempts must certainly have deterred an even larger number from even trying to leave. Last March, 51 percent of Haitians polled told Gallup that, given the opportunity, they would leave their country permanently.
The aid is simply not getting to Haitians. The situation remains dire. I am including a few stories about the current aid situation to show how urgent the need to take action and donate to organizations that are on the ground getting aid to the people.
Aid:
Common Dreams.org, We Want Our Voices To Be Heard
The Real Disaster in Haiti is Happening Right Now
My colleague down here with me, Kathy Bergin from the disaster law organization You.Me.We., said that it feels like we are watching people slowly die. We read the UN Guid ing Principles on Internal Displacement and the corresponding human rights laws. We strategized on holding the international community and Haitian Government accountable to national and international human rights standards as they spend the $11 bil lion of promised funds, so that poor people don’t starve to death in the camps. But right now we are overwhelmed by injustice and the lack of legal remedies to address this human rights disaster.
Bev Bell, Suffering and Survival: Haitian Earthquake Survivors Need Social and Economic Rights
The Urgency of Housing in Haiti: Government Destroys Refugee Camps (Part II)
The Urgency of Housing in Haiti: First Priority in Addressing Widespread Rape (Part I)
things are getting WORSE. There are families living in mud with no food and these stupid organizations are saving the money for longterm projects. We sent money to help Haitians and the Aid organizations aren't doing it! There are some doing the workPIH , ijdh, Aristide Foundation, HERF.
This is what people on the ground are saying it is like:
ijdh, Conditions in Haiti on a Steady Decline
TIME, Haiti:
Four months after the earthquake, Port-au-Prince is a collection of jury-rigged tent cities. Now just add water and watch despair grow.
Have you ever seen a city melt? You will, once the storm season comes to Haiti, sending wind and water through the encampments that appeared after the Jan. 12 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Made of tree-branch poles and plastic sheeting, discarded canvas and corrugated cardboard, found metal and donated supplies, the tent metropolises are set up on hillsides, in front of the presidential palace, on the ruins of houses, on the remains of previous slums. They shelter hundreds of thousands of people who no longer have a place to call home. Just add water to this misery and Haiti will flood with even more despair.
(See pictures of Haiti's tent cities.)
The Aristide Foundation for Democracy (AFD) was created in 1996 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the first democratically elected president of Haiti) with a simple principle in mind: "The promise of democracy can only be fulfilled if all sectors of Haitian society are able to actively participate in the democratic life of the nation."
Fonkoze (***) , a micro-lending organization in Haiti. From their Web site:
Fonkoze is Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor. We are the largest micro-finance institution offering a full range of financial services to the rural-based poor in Haiti. Fonkoze is committed to the economic and social improvement of the people and communities of Haiti and to the reduction of poverty in the country.
According to their Web site, their offices have taken quite a hit. This is another one in the category of long-term rebuilding. (h/t parryander and dizzydean)
Haiti Emergency Relief Foundation:
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for political prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – are funneling needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. They are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support.
All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
We fight for the human rights of Haiti’s poor, in court, on the streets and wherever decisions about Haitians’ rights are made. We represent the unjustly imprisoned and victims of political persecution, coordinate grassroots advocacy in Haiti and the US, train human rights advocates in Haiti and disseminate human rights information worldwide.
The Lambi Fund (***) is a secular non-profit nonprofit whose mission is "to assist the popular, democratic movement in Haiti. Its goal is to help strengthen civil society as a necessary foundation of democracy and development. The fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people." They support "projects that embrace the following principles: non-violent, non-partisan, community-based, promoting the advancement of women, using education and training for empowerment, and promoting the overall democratic movement."
Partners in Health (****/A+) has now started a BLOG about its efforts called Stand with Haiti. It has very useful information. Partners in Health is also putting out a call for health volunteers, in case you are a medical professional who can help out that way.
Matching Funds
Turn a $25 donation into a $50 donation.
Matching funds currently available at this link for Reiser Relief, a group that parryander works with:
Reiser Relief is a charity started by my friend Father Reiser - it funds our water truck, pays teachers salaries, feeds kids, and it supports orphanages and homes for the elderly and women.
A total of $20K in matching funds have been provided for Reiser Relief from Razoo.
As of May 13, over $4K remain (this number does not appear to be updated daily, but we will keep it as current as possible).
SOIL is based in Haiti (founded by two American females) and although their regular mission is :Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti, they are in the streets in PAP providing normal disaster relief services and translation (they speak Kreyol). They have said that all donations in the next 30 days (at least) will go directly to their relief work rather than their usual mission. They have been in Haiti for several years and are very familiar with the people and communities (h/t Royce)
TransAfrica:
Today, TransAfrica Forum campaigns against the crippling debt burden on the countries of Africa and the Caribbean by opposing Vulture Funds, companies that threaten the gains of already hard-fought for debt relief. TransAfrica Forum also struggles for international financial architecture that promotes sustainable growth and takes cues from civil society.
Other news and diaries: |
ShelterBox: carolina stargazer is still watching the store. The next ShelterBox diary is planned for Tuesday morning, but activity in Friday's diary will be monitored until then. Matching funds are available.
Meteor Blades points the way to a better and more sustainable future for Haitians in Haiti Could Use a New Deal.
As the MSM (in the United States) turns attention away from Haiti, Deoliver47 reminds us that things are not suddenly all better: Raining Disease and More Deaths.
For some good pre-earthquake background on Haiti, see Daisy Cutter's Book Review: "Damming the Flood" by Peter Hallward, pt 1. This diary was published in July 2008 and presents a history of Haiti up to 1999 using Hallward's book as a reference. Excellent.