Even After Obama's Immigration Policy Change, Haitian Families' Dreams Deferred (The Grio)
A CGD paper was mentioned in a Grio piece on Haiti and immigration policy.
From the article:
A full 27 months ago, on March 22, 2010, the Miami Herald’s editorial board wrote: “There is no valid argument for failing to move quickly on this front.” Later Miami Herald editorials referred to a “double standard” in failing to create a Haitian FRPP; and a Los Angeles Times editorial asked,“Why the disparate treatment?”
In July 2010, the Boston Globe editorial board called this the “most effective way” to show U.S. leadership to help Haiti recover, and the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Antonio Express News, Washington Post, Newsday, Star Ledger and Palm Bach Post have also supported this.
No one would get a “green card” any sooner; but like the approved Cubans, they’d be able to wait for them here rather than in Haiti. And as a Center for Global Development paper said last year, the Cuban program’s rationale of saving lives at sea and providing for orderly migration applies with equal force to Haiti, as a recent sea tragedy underscored.
But the administration’s silence on this issue has been as deafening as the political and editorial support has been broad, and as unfortunate as the merits are strong.
The May 24’s North Miami City Hall press conference of Haitian American leaders and similar and increasing expressions of community disappointment with the White House over this may have political consequences, if attention isn’t paid.
For example, the press conference was broadcast for three consecutive days on Island TV, a leading Haitian community television station, and there have been expressions of frustration on local Creole radio. The leaders’ disappointment was reported in Miami Times and Sun-Sentinel news articles and on WLRN/Miami Herald radio. And the Haitian American Professionals Coalition wrote the President expressing “frustration and disappointment.”
There’s an irony here. The assumed reason for administration inaction is feared political consequences, not any question about the merits.