Marie Therese was one of a handful of Haitian women attending
English class in a duplex on a recent Boston morning. In a mixture
of English and Haitian Creole, she echoed a sentiment shared by her
classmates, most of whom had immigrated after the 2010 earthquake
that killed at least 200,000 Haitians and left 1.5 million
homeless. They talked about how tough it had been to get jobs in
the U.S. in the economic malaise still lingering since the
recession. Marie Therese had worked at a chocolate factory for
about a year but hadn’t found steady work lately. Still, she said,
she didn’t want to move back to Haiti anytime soon.

“It’s difficult to find work,” she said, “but here, I have
hope.”

It’s no secret that much U.S. aid to Haiti since the earthquake
hasn’t been spent effectively. An Associated Press report from
earlier this summer
noted that “the fruits of an ambitious, $1.8 billion U.S.
reconstruction promise are hard to find.” Another recent
AP report about a USAID audit described how the largest U.S.
contractor working in Haiti hasn’t monitored its projects
adequately and isn’t on track to complete its assignments on
schedule. Nearly three years after the disaster, more than 350,000
displaced Haitians remain living in tent camps.

With foreign aid failing, some have championed an alternative
way to help Haiti recover. Center for Global Development (CGD)
economist Michael Clemens has labeled immigration Haiti’s “most
successful poverty reduction program,” noting that the “vast
majority of Haitians who have escaped poverty have done so by
leaving the country.” He and Harvard’s Lant Pritchett have estimated
that a low-skill worker from Haiti earns at least six times more in
the U.S.

A tweak in U.S. immigration policy could channel money directly
to Haitians and help them in a way that billions of dollars of
foreign money has yet to do. More than 100,000 Haitians are already
approved for family-based U.S. visas but remain in Haiti on
2-11-year waiting lists. With the stroke of a pen, President Barack
Obama could allow these Haitians to come to the U.S. to wait for
their visas, apply for work authorization, and eventually help
support family still in Haiti via remittances. Remittance payments
accounted for
21 percent of Haiti’s GDP in 2011 according to the World
Bank.

Massachusetts State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry (D), a Haitian
American, has led the charge for creating the so-called Haitian
family reunification parole program (HFRPP). In July, her office
sent a petition with more than 6,000 signatures to the White House
and the Department of Homeland Security lobbying for the change.
DHS has remained silent on the issue despite the petition and
bipartisan support from 100 members of U.S. Congress, including
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.).

A similar program was created in 2007 for Cubans in the same
family-based visa immigration limbo. One of its
purposes is to “discourage dangerous and irregular maritime
migration.” Such travel is something people may be willing to risk
when the payoff is a six-fold increase in wages. Eleven Haitians

died at sea in June when the boat carrying them sank near the
Bahamas; last December, 38 Haitian migrants
died in a shipwreck near Cuba.

But ultimately, the move would just be another ad hoc, stop-gap
measure added to the U.S. immigration policy hodgepodge,
like the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to Haitians
post-quake.

“They need to fix this thing, because it’s a mess,” says
Carmelle Bonhometre. For 12 years, Bonhometre has worked at the
Association of Haitian Women
of Boston, where Marie Therese was studying English. “People
will still come illegally if they are [otherwise] waiting for 12 or
14 years for their brother or sister.”

TPS was granted to Haitians who had been living in the United
States when the earthquake struck, allowing them to remain in the
country, and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano recently
extended the program through July 2014. But Bonhometre says
that some refused the status because they worried it would limit
their freedom to visit family in Haiti or affect their application
statuses for visas. “They need to fix the bureaucracy,” she adds.
“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“The bad thing about TPS a lot of people don’t realize,” Teddy
Chery says, “[is that] TPS can get renewed every two years, and at
any given moment . . . they can close TPS.”  Chery works for
the City of Cambridge’s mayor’s office and is active in Boston’s
Haitian American community.

“There’s a country in Latin America who’s been living under TPS
for over 20 years,” Chery says, “so are you going to have a TPS
program for Haitians for the next 20 to 30 years? Something’s got
to give. So why don’t you just do the family partition and have it
be a second level to TPS?”

While a Haitian family reunification program could be based on
the existing Cuban one, Chery notes that Haiti’s Caribbean neighbor
has clout his home country doesn’t. “I think unfortunately we don’t
have enough elected Haitian officials that are making enough
noises,” he says, “along with other Haitian American professionals,
of using their power to vote to influence policy decisions. . . .
And I think that’s the reason why for example Cuba was able to do
it, is because when you look at Florida, when you look at Miami,
and there’s a big chunk of the Latino vote you need.”

Immigration has taken on a renewed importance, especially in the
GOP, since election day. President Obama trounced Mitt Romney in
the Latino vote,
71 percent to 27 percent according to Pew Research Center exit
polls.

Sen. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has stressed the
Republican Party’s need to address immigration policy sensibly;
approaching it as an economic issue may be one potentially
succesful strategy. “Our goal is not to make rich people poorer,”
Rubio recently
told Politico. “It is to make poor people richer, make
all Americans more prosperous. And I think immigration is a part of
that. . . . In order for this economy to grow dynamically, this
country is going to need a 21st century legal immigration
system.”

While economists’ convictions about the costs and benefits of
immigration differ, the rough consensus holds that negative effects
on wages and jobs
for U.S.-born workers are minimal, and that
positive benefits from increased
productivity and specialization in U.S. labor markets are
significant.

Shortly after the November election, CGD
recommended that the Obama administration grant Haitians family
reunification parole before the president’s first term ends. The
move wouldn’t require action from Congress and may be an effective
way to support Haitian recovery given the shortcomings of foreign
aid to date. Although, as Republicans and Democrats alike know, the
lack of comprehensive reform to untangle U.S. immigration policy
remains the crux of the issue. America’s convoluted policy stance
toward Haiti only makes that point more salient.