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.