At first I didn’t think they were going to get to the crux of the matter when Tucker Carlson last night grilled Steve Forester, an attorney for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, about the upcoming Trump decision about whether to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti (we mentioned it here the other day).
At first they beat around the bush on whether there were any criminals in the Haitian population living legally (temporarily!) in the US, but with continued questioning Forester finally mentioned the ‘R-word’—remittances!
The 50,000 or so Haitians who got in to the US (mostly illegally) prior to the earthquake of 2010 were given a temporary amnesty to stay and work in America and according to Forester in 2015 alone sent $1.3 billion American dollars back to their home country. That money is propping up Haiti and Forester says the country will be destabilized if those ‘temporary’ legal workers are returned to Haiti!
However, the question I have is: so what about the fact that that money is now lost to the US economy? And are those Haitian workers taking jobs Americans can do (or legal refugees might do)?
You know I mostly write about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program where of course refugees are also sending billions ‘home,’ but it’s important for you to know about the many other programs for legal immigration, like TPS and the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery’ I told you about here the other day.
Disney wants the Haitian workers!
Forester told Tucker there were 50,000 Haitians here enjoying temporary protected status and have been here 7-15 years. I think Forester completely lost the audience (and Tucker) when he got to his final argument—Disney would lose 500 workers if TPS is not extended—instead of continuing his ‘humanitarian’ shtick.
Tucker commented that maybe Disney would have to pay higher wages to hire new (American) workers!
Watch the whole interview starting at 22:49 and ending at around 28:43. You might want to watch the segment prior to the Haiti piece about how Mexicans aren’t too happy with all the Central Americans parked in their country who are no longer headed to the US border!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsoti6j9BO4
I have a category on Haiti here, with 56 previous posts!