Monday, January 25, 2010

The Best Way to Help Haitians Get Out of Poverty?

Let them immigrate to the US:

82 Percent of Haitians above this poverty line are here in the United States.

The Washington Post also has a good article looking at Haitian immigration.  Here are some highlights. (HT Tyler Cowen)

Nearly 55,000 Haitians have been approved for family visas but are on waiting lists to enter because Congress has set limits on how many may come each year, the State Department says…

Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that if the United States doubled for the next five years the 25,000 Haitians who have been coming to the United States annually, it would substantially increase the remittances sent back, providing critical help as the nation tries to rebuild. Such help streaming home to families is more reliable and more likely to be spent efficiently than the ebb and flow of foreign aid, he said. Abrams suggested that to satisfy critics of increased immigration, the United States could offset the influx of Haitians by temporarily slowing immigration from elsewhere.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Libertarianism: applied autism.

thinking said...

The far right would oppose this increased immigration. The critics would never settle for lower immigration from other countries as an offset.

Look at Rush Limbaugh, and how he even has criticized the aid to Haiti. Don't think for a moment that Limbaugh would not lampoon such an immigration plan, and come out with more of his veiled and not so veiled racist remarks. And that would be both a symbol and a driver of how many on the far right would react.

So it's a great idea...but if it ever happens, expect more vile comments from the far right.