Haitian Amnesty - A humane decision for temporary refuge in America

Haitian Amnesty. WSJ Editorial
A humane decision for temporary refuge in America.
WSJ, Jan 16, 2010

The Obama Administration acted properly, and humanely, late yesterday in extending temporary amnesty to Haitians who were illegally inside the U.S. before this week's catastrophic earthquake. Some 30,000 Haitians had been awaiting deportation but will now be allowed to stay in the U.S. and work for another 18 months.

You might even call this amnesty of a sort, if we can use that politically taboo word. But we hope even the most restrictionist voices on the right and in the labor movement will understand the humanitarian imperative. The suffering and chaos since the earthquake should make it obvious that Haiti is no place to return people whose only crime was coming to America to escape the island's poverty and ill-governance.

For that matter, we don't mind if they stay here permanently. Haitian immigrants as a group are among America's most successful, which demonstrates that Haiti's woes owe more to corruption, disdain for property rights and lack of public safety than to any flaw in its people. Their remittances to Haiti also help to sustain the impoverished population. Haitians received some $1.65 billion from overseas in 2006, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

We can argue later about whether to make this temporary amnesty permanent, but for now the U.S. decision to let the Haitians stay is evidence of the generosity that Americans typically show in a crisis.