Helping Haiti
Posted on 19. Jan, 2010 by Lydia Fiser in From the Editors
The U.S. added another human rights abuse to its record chronicled in the New York Times today. In an article titled, Homeless Haitians Told Not to Flee to U.S., the Times explains how different branches of the U.S. military are working together to prevent any displaced Haitians from finding their way to the U.S. for help after the devastating earthquake. The article reports that Air Force cargo planes are broadcasting the message:
“Listen, don’t rush on boats to leave the country…If you do that, we’ll all have even worse problems. Because, I’ll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”
The Department of Homeland Security is making room in the Krome Service Processing Center, a federal jail for people waiting deportation from the U.S., in preparation for an influx of Haitians that the U.S. plans to send back to a demolished city with few supplies and inability to care for the millions of internally displaced citizens. The State Department is denying visas for people to come to the U.S. for medical care, and the Coast Guard is patrolling the waters around Florida ready to send boats back to Haiti or to Guantánamo Bay.
In a time of crisis, if we have the ability to help our fellow human beings, we should. This current situation draws attention to issues of immigration and international relations among the U.S. and other countries. Although there are many factors to take into account when deciding immigration policy, these are not people who would stay in the U.S. forever (at least not most of them). These are people who need a temporary haven, a place that is not destroyed and has the infrastructure to support them while Port-au-Prince is rebuilt. With Florida only 700 miles from Haiti and a secure infrastructure of hospitals, food, clean living spaces and ample people who want to help but have not been given the opportunity because they are stuck 700 miles from Haiti, we have a responsibility not to turn these people away. In fact, if Florida and the U.S. were to open boarders temporarily to provide shelter, the U.S. could actually write this in the history books as a human rights success.
Florida has its own problems: dwindling funding, a failing educational system, struggles with healthcare, illegal servitude on South Florida farms (another immigration issue), but sometimes we have to put aside our long-term problems for an unexpected crisis. And this is one of those times. True, we don’t have the ability to support the millions of displaced in Haiti, but we do have the resources to help some. If you don’t think so, remember Hurricane Katrina and the thousands of Florida families who welcomed New Orleans families into their homes and students into our schools. We can save lives, and so we should.
What do you think? If you were given the opportunity to offer temporary solace to a Haitian family, would you?
Your question poses the dilemma of privatized charity versus one done on a governmental level. If I could simply let a Haitian borrow my healthcare for the next few months to recover would I? Without a doubt.
The crux of the matter is your statement on if these people would go back. Haiti has been one of the poorest countries in the world for a time, and currently ranks as the poorest country in the Americas. In 2006, Transparency International rated it as having the most corrupt government in the world- worse than Burma and Iraq. Would you go back? Perhaps some would, if one had the motivation and strength to want to make a difference in their homeland. I’m not convinced that would be the case for the average person though.
In any case, you pose an interesting idea to be considered. I think a well organized and documented effort to bring Haitians here to receive short term care is both a noble and feasible thought that should be considered.
Intelligent people, like Felix Salmon, have highlighted the limits of monetary donations. What people need is food, shelter, drinking water and medical attention, now. Money can only do so much good, and in the immediate term, it can basically do no good at all.
So I agree, Catherine. What we need is a way to provide for refugees, immediately. That could mean putting them on boats and calling for a volunteer effort in which Americans take them into their homes or offer up other benefits, like you suggested. It could mean making some kind of deal with the Dominican Republic, or some combination of the above.
But like you said, that kind of assistance would have to be temporary. What better way to ensure that Haiti does get rebuilt, and that over time people’s financial contributions do wind up improving the long-term plight of the Haitian people, than to give America and Haiti’s other neighbors a stake in ensuring they have a country worth returning home to?