Category: Haiti

Feds want more Haitians to sign up for “temporary” refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wondered why I was seeing notices about new registration periods for Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, and I had noticed mentions of Hurricane Sandy and wondered how that affected Haitians in the US illegally (or already on TPS).

Here, in late December, David North writing at the Center for Immigration Studies blog tells us what is going on.

The administration continues to go out of its way to be nice to illegal aliens, and others from Haiti, who are now in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS was granted to Haitians in the U.S. originally because of the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
[Map of Haiti]

TPS gives otherwise ineligible people legal status in 18-month chunks, during which they are free to work in the above-ground labor market. The beneficiaries are not on a path to citizenship, but they are much better off than they were before, because, among other things, they are also not on a path to deportation. But they do have to re-register every 18 months.

The latest wrinkle relates to the re-registration period for TPS beneficiaries, which was originally scheduled for October 1 through November 30, 2012. Midway through that period Hurricane Sandy swept through the East Coast, being particularly harmful to New York City, the home of many of the TPS Haitians.

According to the announcement in today’s Federal Register “DHS recognizes that Haitian TPS beneficiaries affected by the hurricane may require additional time to prepare a re-registration application and to gather either the funds to cover the re-registration fees or the documentation to support a fee waiver request.”

So, DHS, instead of extending the October-November registration window for a while to cope with what it regarded as a major problem, let the registration period come to an end, and then, as of December 28, 2012, re-opened it again to close, this time, on January 29, 2013.

We wrote about how the Haitian earthquake back in 2010 gave the Obama administration an excuse to give Haitians temporary refugee status and we knew then, based on all the other TPS designations, that this would never end.  TPS would just be extended and extended until the illegals had purchased homes, opened businesses and raised families (voted?) and like the Liberians before them would then cry foul if anyone ever tried to end their “temporary” stay.

North continued (emphasis mine):

My sense is that USCIS keeps being disappointed at the TPS turnout, but it’s not because of storms, it is because interior enforcement of the immigration law is so tepid, and the talk of an impending legalization program is so common that a lot of Haitian illegals decide, understandably, why bother?

According to the Miami Herald the current Haitian enrollment in TPS is about 60,000; at one point USCIS expected more than twice as many would take advantage of its provisions.

Incidentally, if one is eligible for TPS and holds another nonimmigrant visa, such as an F-1 for international students, the individual alien can choose whichever status suits them best, a highly unusual feature in the migration business.

Readers, I should have made a separate category for Temporary Protected Status but didn’t.  Just type those words into our search function and all previous posts on the topic appear, here.   Guatemalans are now lobbying to get TPS for their people (I see by the large number of hits I get on Guatemala TPS posts), but I gather so far the Obama Administration has not chosen them yet for this special amnesty program.

Ho hum Haitians get to stay

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Obama Administration has extended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians who were already (some illegally!) in the US prior to the earthquake in 2010 (or likely some who snuck in after the earthquake!).  This is nothing new for Democrat or Republican administrations.  No one ever goes home who was granted TPS status.  After years and years (decades!) in the US, the pitch is made—-how can we send them back now after they have bought homes, started businesses and sent kids to school?

From Immigration News:

The Associated Press reports the U.S. government is giving Haitians displaced by the 2010 earthquake more time to legally live and work while their Caribbean homeland rebuilds. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has extended Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for an additional 18 months. The immigration benefits had been set to expire in January but now Haitians with TPS status can register for an extension beginning January 23, 2013 through July 22, 2014.

But remember!  There is no path to citizenship and these Haitians, although they will have drivers’ licenses and the right to work, cannot VOTE!

They are all waiting for the big amnesty to come if Obama is reelected.

100,000 Haitians could be fast-tracked for visas to come to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few noteworthy Republican members of Congress are backing the idea—-Senators Scott Brown and Marco Rubio and Representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen.

One of the primary reasons they say they want to speed up the migration—the immigrants will work (and maybe not work) and send lots of money back to Haiti.  Florida’s unemployment rate is still above 10%, so how much working will they be doing?   Massachusetts’ unemployment rate is much better at around 7%, so I suppose they can all go live there.

From the Palm Beach Post:

MIAMI — With the two-year anniversary of Haiti’s massive earthquake approaching next week, members of Congress are joining Haitian-American community leaders to push the Obama administration to help more Haitians get visas to live and work in the U.S.

They want to fast-track visas for tens of thousands of Haitians whose petitions to join relatives in this country already have been approved. A cap on the number of visas that the U.S. grants each year, though, means it can take a decade for a visa to be issued.

It’s estimated that more than 100,000 Haitians are on the waiting list for visas to join their families in the U.S., and more than 15,000 of them are the spouses and children of U.S. citizens, according to the Dec. 22 letter sent by eight members of Florida’s congressional delegation to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio both signed, as did six U.S. representatives, including Democrat Frederica Wilson, whose Miami district represents more Haitians than any other in Congress, and Republican Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

[….]

Some members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, including U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick sent similar messages to Napolitano in the fall.

Read it all.

Arab activists ask for Temporary Protected Status for Syrians!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again.   A couple of decades ago we granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadorans, Hondurans and Liberians.  More recently it was granted to Haitians, but as Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies famously said in 1999—there is nothing quite so permanent as temporary protected status.

Readers this is one more back channel way for foreign nationals to stay in the US beyond the limits of the visas that got them here in the first place.  A “crisis” happens at home and the US government says, oh, poor thing, we can’t send you back to a country in crisis.  So the alien stays and stays and stays (with a right to work) and eventually buys a home or a business and then the politicians say, we must extend TPS because heck they are all settled in!

The only thing these immigrants can’t do is vote (but you can bet they are figuring out how to do that too!).

Now we have James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (AAI) petitioning Obama to give TPS status to Syrians.   Well, using his logic Egyptians should stay, and Libyans, and Iranians, and Yeminis, and the list goes on.

Here is what AAI is reporting at its website:

Yesterday, the Arab American Institute, in a formal request to the Obama administration, asked for Temporary Protected Status privileges to be extended to Syrian citizens currently residing in the United States. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a procedure by which the Secretary of Homeland Security may provide temporary asylum to individuals who are in America and who cannot safely return to their home countries.

As the Syrian uprising nears its 10th month, the situation on the ground has grown increasingly dangerous for average Syrian citizens. Questions continue about the safety of Syrian nationals upon their return home from visits to the U.S. As a result, many Syrians currently in the U.S. are deeply concerned for their personal safety and the safety of their families if they return home.

If granted, TPS will allow Syrian citizens who are currently here – mostly as students and tourists – to stay in the U.S. until they can safely return home. It does not contribute to granting an immigrant permanent residence, and reverts the beneficiary to his or her previous immigration status as soon as the temporary protection ends.   [But, ahhhhhhh! it never ends!–ed]

Those original nearly 200,000 Salvadorans that live in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area have been here for two decades (growing their population) and are now looking for an extension of TPS AGAIN this March—a topic which I’ve extensively covered at Potomac Tea Party Report (here is one recent post).  Oh, and by the way, during their TPS they can figure out just how to make permanent asylum claims (or find a US citizen to marry!).


International Organization for Migration: managing the movement of people around the world

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve written about the International Organization for Migration (IOM) before because they get big bucks from us (the taxpayers) to process refugees into the US.  They are also largely responsible for teaching refugees abroad how to live in the West.  In its sixtieth year this year, they do more than that according to the New York Times.

The way I see it, the IOM is funded largely by US taxpayers to help manage the flow of labor for businesses around the world—they are kind of like glorified ‘head hunters.’  The article tells us in glowing terms how they have come to rescue various nationals when the labor situation went sour —like Bangladeshis sent to Libya to work and needing to get back home when Obama’s Libyan war broke out.   We pay for this.

This article shows how frustrating it is for the average US voter to understand who is running the international migration racket and get a handle on it.  It’s  not like you can call your Congressman and say stop the funding because we are dealing here with a body that is operating outside US jurisdiction (even though the NYT says the US calls the shots).  Add IOM and the UN and it’s no wonder immigration is out of the control of our federal government.

From the New York Times:

DHAKA, Bangladesh — As global migration has rapidly expanded, so has the influence of a little-known group whose eclectic work shapes migrants’ lives across six continents.

[….]

Part research group, part handyman crew, the International Organization for Migration has become the who-you-gonna-call outfit for 132 member countries grappling with the surge in migration, both legal and unauthorized. Its rapid growth is a sign that migration has outgrown most countries’ ability to manage on their own. “I haven’t made it to a country yet where migration hasn’t been high on the list of priorities,” said William L. Swing, the director general.

Yet even as its duties grow, the group operates under tight constraints that reflect the special worries migration can arouse. The United States [who in the US calls the shots?] and other rich donors largely dictate its agenda and ensure that it does not erode their power to decide which migrants they admit and how many.

“It helps them bring in the people they want and keep out the people they don’t,” said Joseph Chamie, a researcher at the Center for Migration Studies in New York.  [It looks like they want cheap third world laborers and not well-educated Europeans or other westerners—ed]

[….]

The migration group was formed in 1951 under a different name to resettle Europeans displaced by World War II. It had plans to quickly disband, but migration kept growing. Starting in the 1970s, it helped resettle 1.5 million Indochinese refugees, and brought home 218,000 workers during the first Persian Gulf war. In the past two decades, the group has added 89 member countries and undertaken increasingly varied work.

What!  Who decides immigration policy these days—governments or meatpackers (or both in collusion)?  Canadian readers should find this next paragraph interesting.

Canada tapped it to recruit meatpackers. Britain used it to screen would-be migrants for tuberculosis. The United States used it to run a jobs program in Haiti, deterring Haitians from illegally immigrating.

Gee, I wonder how that jobs program worked out for Haiti because if it was successful in keeping the Haitians home, maybe Obama could import it to the US!

IOM: The movement of people causes more concern than the movement of money or goods!  You got that right!

“If the range of our activities has expanded, it’s because migration has taken on much more importance in our globalized world,” said Gervais Appave, a senior official at the group’s headquarters in Geneva.

But the movement of people causes more concern than the movement of money or goods, and Western powers are unwilling to cede authority to an international group.  [sounds like they already have to a large degree–ceded power!]

I’ll bet you a buck that the average US Senator or Congressman has never heard of the International Organization for Migration.  LOL!  We are always surprised every time we learn another Member of Congress has NEVER heard of the Refugee Resettlement Program even.

Big budget funded with boatloads of your money:

Virtually all its work is financed on a project-by-project basis, giving donors control. Together, the United States and Europe provide half the $1.4 billion budget, and every director has been American.

A few years ago I was able to find at USA Spending our “contribution” to the IOM and it stood at over $301 million (before Obama).  Today I can’t find anywhere what the US gives the IOM.  Readers:  Let me know if you find it.

Then there is the UN

I’ve had this article kicking around for days, so just to save the link, I’ll note here that a Republican bill in the US House of Representatives is seeking to scale back our contribution to the UN and bring its policies more in-line with US policy.  The bill would limit funding to the special UN Palestinian refugee agency:

The legislation also would limit the use of U.S. contributions to only the specific purposes outlined by Congress and would withhold U.S. funding for any UN agency that upgrades the status of the Palestinian observer mission or any agency that helps Palestinian refugees.