Pro/Con Haiti: Should Haitian refugees be granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS)?

Haiti needs help to halt its nightmarish descent into a failed state. U.S. national interests dictate a comprehensive approach to Haiti’s challenges, using all the tools in its arsenal. Yet unwarranted concerns over a potential surge in Haitian migration to the United States have led the Bush administration to disregard Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as a tool for promoting Haitian stability.

TPS can be invoked if a refugee’s home country is beset by “ongoing armed conflict, the temporary effects of an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.” It would apply to non-immigrant Haitians already on U.S. soil and would be effective for up to 18 months. Current TPS beneficiaries include applicants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua — all since being hit by a major earthquake in 1999 — as well as Sudan, Liberia, Burundi, Somalia and Montserrat.

In 2004, Haiti suffered a political earthquake aggravated by environmental disaster and armed conflict. Tropical Storm Jeanne killed 2,000 and left 200,000 homeless. Earlier mudslides killed 3,000. Floods left most residents of Gonaives without a functioning infrastructure, homes, food or water. Road conditions, attacks by armed gangs and political violence have disrupted emergency food distributions.

In Port-au-Prince, escalating political violence has cost 170 lives. Thousands of ex-soldiers retain control of many provincial towns, taking the law into their own hands. Political dissidents sporadically close streets, schools and businesses; roaming armed gangs set tires and cars afire. The February 2004 uprising caused $500 million in business losses and turned the slums into no man’s land.

Haiti’s interim government has used arbitrary arrests and detentions to quell the violence. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International have asked the interim government to disarm illegally armed groups and to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for killings and other atrocities.

The United States should avoid having a failed state so close to its borders. TPS would ensure that thousands of Haitians survive this difficult period and enable a smoother transition to democracy. Basically it’s a no-brainer, except to the alarmists in Washington whose fear of opening the floodgates is matched only by their maladministration of U.S. interests in Haiti. With Haiti set to hold national and presidential elections later this year, President Bush should reverse the administration’s TPS policy so democracy can be ushered in and sustained past election day.

Congress established the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) category in 1990 to provide temporary asylum to those whose homelands were struck by unforeseen natural or man-made disasters. But what was originally intended as a way to provide temporary relief to a small number of foreign nationals has turned into a permanent backdoor immigration program for large numbers of people, including many illegal aliens.

TPS is rarely temporary and rarely limited to those already in the United States when a natural disaster or political upheaval triggers its implementation. While lobbyists were asking that TPS be extended to Haitians, they were also arguing to have it extended, yet again, for El Salvadorans — who were granted it after Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998. After the first 18 months, advocates invariably come back to Congress to argue for an extension — a process that is repeated several more times until the advocates argue that these “temporary” guests have established roots in their communities, and it would be a tremendous hardship for them to be forced to leave.

One does not need a crystal ball to predict that conditions in Haiti will still be chaotic 18 months from now and that advocates will argue for repeated extensions of TPS. Nor does one need a crystal ball to predict that the promise of “temporary” residence in the United States will trigger a large-scale exodus of Haitians. Meanwhile, U.S. communities, especially in Florida, will face an influx of people likely to be dependent on public services. Even before last summer’s series of hurricanes, Florida’s public education and health care infrastructure was strained to the breaking point by mass immigration. Since the hurricanes, its physical infrastructure has suffered billions of dollars in damage, and countless homes and businesses have been destroyed.

Americans are anxious to help the people of Haiti, but they are not willing to see their generosity taken advantage of, as has repeatedly occurred with TPS recipients. As a nation and as individuals we can and should assist people in other countries and other parts of the world who are coping with the effects of disasters wrought by God or man. Offering TPS to Haitians will not help that country overcome the effects of natural disasters or self-inflicted political and economic ones. But it would make a further mockery of the concept of “temporary” protection and create permanent burdens for many American communities whose generosity is already being abused by mass immigration.