What if Haitians were allowed to leave the disaster?

Tim Lee provides some interesting insight into how borders obstruct migration even during the worst humanitarian tragedies such as the earthquake in Haiti:

Obviously, no similar amenities were available to native Haitians. Many slept on the streets, and there remains a very real danger of mass starvation if aid doesn’t arrive in time. And of course most Haitians don’t have the option of hopping on a jet bound for the United States. That’s a tragedy because evacuation is crucial to crisis management. Hundreds of thousands of people fled New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Evacuation was not only a good decision for many of the people who evacuated; it also eased the load on overwhelmed emergency workers.

The difference, of course, is that American immigration law prevents the vast majority of Haitians from coming to the United States. True, the American government has grudgingly allowed Haitians who are already here illegally to stay for another 18 months. But the our immigration policy remains essentially hostile to Haitian immigrants:

[Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano warned that no new arrivals would get amnesty and the U.S. Coast Guard and other authorities would move quickly to stop new migrants. “People should not leave Haiti with the false belief that they will be entitled to TPS in the United States,” she said. She also said, “We are seeing no signs of any sort of migration of that nature at this point.”

In the wake of Katrina, Gov. Perry put out the welcome mat for Katrina refugees and even airlifted some refugees to other states whose emergency facilities weren’t so overtaxed. If he had instead tried to block people from fleeing to Texas from New Orleans in the days after Katrina, (something that, fortunately, he didn’t have the authority to do) we would all have castigated him for his callousness. Whatever minor inconveniences Texans might have suffered from the presence of New Orleanians would clearly be outweighed by the scale of the human tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.

For reasons that aren’t clear to me, most Americans have very different intuitions about human beings in Haiti who are, if anything, in even more desperate straits. Not only are we not putting out the welcome mat, we’re actually spending taxpayer dollars to prevent Haitians from reaching our shores.

Haitians Granted TPS!

At 5 P.M. this evening, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she was extending TPS to all Haitians currently in the United States:

“As part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to assist Haiti following Tuesday’s devastating earthquake, I am announcing the designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of January 12, 2010. This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country for the next 18 months. Providing a temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this Administration’s continuing efforts to support Haiti’s recovery. [. . .] Haitians in the U.S. who are eligible to apply for TPS should call USCIS toll-free at (800) 375-5283.”

Earthquake in Haiti Changes Immigration Policy in the US

Responding to the devastation from the Haiti, the Obama administration has temporarily suspended deportations of undocumented immigrants from that country. About 30,000 Haitians in the United States are facing deportation orders.

While this is a decent move, some advocates are urging more action From Foreign Policy:

Now, immigrants' rights advocates and Florida lawmakers are pushing the administration to grant Haitians Temporary Protected Status, a special dispensation given to immigrants who cannot return to their homelands:

On Wednesday, South Florida's three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress -- Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- sent a joint letter to Obama requesting TPS for Haitian nationals, along with immediate humanitarian aid for Haiti. They have organized a news conference on Thursday to talk about the issue.

"How much does Haiti have to suffer before Haitians in the United States are granted TPS pursuant to law?'' said Lincoln Diaz-Balart Wednesday. ``The reason TPS exists in the statute as an option for the president is precisely for moments such as this in Haiti.''

The other countries whose nationals are currently eligible for TPS are El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan. Given Haiti's traumatic recent history and promximity to the U.S., I have to wonder why isn't already on that list.

From the New York Times:

Lawmakers and immigrant advocacy groups renewed calls for the administration to grant Haiti a special status that would shield Haitian immigrants in this country from deportation for an extended period and allow them to work legally. The Haitian government and advocates here have been asking Washington to grant the status, known as temporary protected status, since late 2008.

Haiti has sought the status after a punishing series of natural disasters, starting with floods in 2004 that left more than 5,000 people dead or missing. In 2008, four big storms killed at least 800 people and destroyed most of Haiti’s food crops.

The Bush administration decided against granting Haitians the temporary status in December 2008, and the Obama administration decided last March to continue deporting Haitians.

Among those calling on Wednesday for the Obama administration to reconsider were Senators Schumer and Gillibrand New York, both Democrats, and Representatives Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart of south Florida, both Republicans, as well as John C. Favalora, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Miami.

Via Immigration Impact:

A TPS designation based on a natural disaster requires first that the affected country request the designation, that DHS and the State Department determine that a substantial but temporary disruption of living conditions has taken place, and finally that the country is temporarily unable to handle the return of its citizens who are abroad.

Given Haiti’s chronic poverty, civil unrest, and lack of infrastructure, coupled with frequent and punishing tropical storms and hurricanes, it seems that granting TPS for Haiti would have been an easy policy decision many times over in the last decade. Thus far, however, nationals of Haiti living in the U.S. have never been eligible for TPS. Haiti’s proximity to the U.S., politicians’ fear of mass exodus, and trumped up national security claims, such as those made under Attorney General John Ashcroft, have kept Haitians in limbo for years.

During a national call with advocates on Wednesday, the White House acknowledged the many voices already calling for TPS, but said it intended to focus on immediate relief efforts in the coming days. In President Obama’s pledge of support yesterday, he stated that a response to Haiti’s devastating loss will “require every element of our national capacity” and that “Haiti must be a top priority for [U.S. diplomatic, developmental and military] departments and agencies”—which begs the question, “Doesn’t granting TPS to unauthorized Haitians currently in the U.S. count as a “top priority?”

Past administrations, however, have a history of denying Haitians protection. As reported in the L.A. Times, DHS deported 30,000 Haitians in February 2008, as first ordered by the Bush administration, which left 600 Haitians languishing in detention centers after the Haitian government stopped issuing travel documents. To say nothing of the fact that the U.S. has generously offered TPS to other nations in need following national disasters—namely to “82,000 Hondurans and 5,000 Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and to 260,000 Salvadorans after an earthquake in 2001,” according to Think Progress’s Wonk Room.

Meanwhile, both Republican and Democratic leaders continue to urge the Administration to grant TPS to Haitians in the U.S. According the L.A. Times:

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote a letter to Obama arguing that “the combined destruction from today’s catastrophic earthquake and the previous storms clearly makes forced repatriation of Haitians hazardous to their safety at this time…We strongly believe that it is for such a situation that Congress created TPS.” Even Broward Democrat Alcee Hastings added his name to the effort, calling it “not only immoral, but irresponsible” to send the illegal Haitians back home.”

The problem, however, is that a TPS designation takes time. Both the State Department and DHS have lengthy review procedures that analyze and calculate a range of requirements, followed by even more analysis within the White House itself. And the longer the Administration waits to consider whether or not to grant TPS, the more likely it is that desperate Haitians will make their way to the country anyway, simply hoping that this time the U.S. will treat them well. Instead, a quick decision to grant TPS, coupled with relief measures designed to help people rebuild their lives in Haiti, is a much better prescription for managing the flow of desperate human souls who emerge from the rubble of Port au Prince.

On a side note if you want to make a quick donation to the relief effort, text "Haiti" to 90999 to donate to the Red Cross or if you are looking for a particularly good organization to donate too- donate to Paul Farmer's organization: Partners in Health.

Links I like

• As the post-Khmer Rouge generation of Cambodians grows up, they’re producing a flurry of films that mimic the vintage style of the 1960s – widely considered the country’s golden era. Much of the revival is owed to educated filmmaker refugees who are repatriating to Cambodia from France and the United States and opening the country’s first film institutes at local universities.
• Hundreds of Somali refugees are being forced at gunpoint to join rebels fighting in northern Yemen
• Paddington Bear is launching a campaign to to highlight the British Government's continued arrest and detention of hundreds of child asylum-seekers in prison-like conditions.
• A disabled athlete who has won five gold medals for Britain was set to be deported to Nigeria after losing his legal battle to live in the UK.
• British Muslims feel a greater sense of patriotism than their counterparts living in mainland Europe, according to a study by the Open Society Institute
• Rather than living in rows of neatly pegged white canvas UN tents set up in fields as the public might imagine it, aid officials have revealed that more than 50 per cent of the planet's 10.5 million refugees are now battling to get by in urban areas.
• The proportion of the population that is foreign-born has almost doubled in the past two decades to 11 per cent, or 6.7 million people.

How to engage people to care...

Nick Kristof takes on the age old question of how to keep people engaged about the world's humanitarian problems:

Anyone who writes about global poverty, genocide or disease wrestles with the question of how to connect better with readers. I’ve increasingly felt that we do a pretty wretched job at this, and I finally put all my thoughts down on paper in this Outside article. The bottom line is that we increasingly have evidence from research in social psychology about what makes readers care — and the answers have to do with story-telling and a sense of success. Guilt-tripping people doesn’t work, nor does jumping and down about millions of people dying. From those of you who work on these kinds of causes, I’d welcome your thoughts on the Outside article or on how we can do a better job connecting with readers on these issues.

Climate Change News

Two articles from BBC outline some dangerous effects of climate change.
'Climate' is a Major cause of conflict in Africa:

Climate has been a major driver of armed conflict in Africa, research shows- and future warming is likely to increase the number of deaths from war. US researchers found that across the continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they suggest strife arises when the food supply is scarce in warm conditions.

The researchers used databases of temperatures across sub-Saharan Africa for the period between 1981 and 2002, and looked for correlations between above average warmth and civil conflict in the same country that left at least 1,000 people dead.

If temperatures rise across the continent as computer models project, future conflicts are likely to become more common, researchers suggest. Their study shows an increase of about 50% over the next 20 years.

"Our findings provide strong impetus to ramp up investments in African adaptation to climate change by such steps as developing crop varieties less sensitive to extreme heat and promoting insurance plans to help protect farmers from adverse effects of the hotter climate," said Dr Burke.

Nana Poku, Professor of African Studies at the UK's Bradford University, suggested that it also pointed up the need to improve mechanisms for avoiding and resolving conflict in the continent.

The effect of climate change on children written by Lord David Putnam:

What price today's decision makers will place on the well-being of future generations when carving out their response to climate change? A new paper released by Unicef UK - Climate Change, Child's Rights and Intergenerational Justice - makes it clear that their responsibility is huge, particularly when it comes to protecting the rights and future well-being of children.

With the potential rise of up to 160,000 child deaths a year in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia directly resulting from climate change, it is children, the most vulnerable children, who will be caught at the centre of the storm.

They will unquestionably carry the greatest burden - both as children and as future adults - and yet they are the least culpable for its damage.

So what exactly does this mean? It means that the implications of climate change for children must be at the top of the agenda at Copenhagen, and that the voices and opinions of children and young people are heard, respected and represented - a key right as outlined in the CRC.

The youth delegates being granted official recognition in Copenhagen are a welcome and crucial step forward in ensuring this happens, but more needs to be done to embed children into the core of the outcome of negotiations.

Tin Cans and the DRC

High in the mountains of South Kivu Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, miners look for coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of mobile phones, gold, and cassiterite, or raw tin. Much of the final product from the efforts of cassiterite ends up as the microscopically-thin layer of tin which lines metal food and drink cans. Tin does not corrode so it is safe for food packaging and is why there may be a tiny bit of DR Congo on your table or in your cupboard today.

Many of the mines like these in eastern DR Congo - in North and South Kivu provinces - are controlled by ethnic Hutu rebels from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The BBC reports:

This group first arrived in DR Congo - under other names - in 1994 after Hutu military commanders and militiamen had masterminded the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The FDLR still vows that it will return to power in Rwanda. It says it doesn't want war and calls for a political dialogue with the Rwandan government (which the Tutsi-dominated elite in Kigali is most unlikely ever to agree to). The FDLR says its weapons are just an insurance policy. But for now, with the rebel group deeply implanted in the forests and mountains of DR Congo, those weapons are also used to extort taxes and minerals from local diggers and traders, reaping profits worth millions of dollars a year.

In Mwenga, local traders also told us that they had to pay the FDLR rebels to get in and out mine sites under their control. They also had to pay a tax for each bag of minerals that they removed from these sites. We followed the mineral trail from Mwenga to the city of Bukavu, where several large export companies have warehouses and offices. We asked local business leader Basila Milabyo if it was true, as traders on the ground had told us, that the export houses knew exactly where the minerals they were purchasing came from - and, by implication, of course, that some of them colluded with the illegal activities of the FDLR.

Australia to Double Humanitarian Aid

The Rudd government has said it will double its humanitarian aid for people fleeing war and persecution in order to stop them from being smuggled. From the Australian:

Senator Evans said yesterday the Government would pour $12.8 million into overseas aid projects this year to help displaced people. This compared with $6.5 million last year.

Victims of the Iraq war would be a top priority, along with Afghans, Burmese and Sri Lankans fleeing persecution and political terror.

Senator Evans said stabilising displaced populations was part of a strategy to try to stop people from attempting risky journeys to Australia.

The move follows a surge in boat people caught off the West Australian coast. Almost 200 Afghans and Sri Lankans have been stopped since October. Two million Iraqis had fled to neighbouring countries in the past five years, while another 2.8 million were displaced inside Iraq. There were 3.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran, up to 200,000 Burmese refugees in Bangladesh and more than 500,000 people displaced in Sri Lanka.

This is a much better response than the past, when the "Pacific Solution" and other tough enforcement measures was the government's answer.

Justice for Darfur?

George Clooney recently visited refugee camps in Chad and has announced that they seek justice from the international community over the genocide. The AP reports:

George Clooney says refugees from Sudan's war-wracked Darfur region that he's been visiting this week are echoing a message: "Bring us justice."

Clooney said his trip to the camps in Chad comes at an "extraordinarily important moment" with the International Criminal Court about to decide whether to seek the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

Despite concerns of heightened violence if the arrest is sought, Clooney said that most Darfur refugees he spoke with told him they see hope in the international community.

Clooney said the concern of increasing violence is most acute among refugees in Darfur. "Here in Chad, it is a very different feeling," he said, with many people telling him: "Bring us justice. Bring us justice."

Clooney is designated a U.N. Messenger of Peace but said his current visit — his sixth to Darfur and Chad — was privately arranged. Clooney, who co-founded Not On Our Watch to focus global attention on Darfur, has been denied entry to Sudan. He called that a sign the government doesn't want to draw any attention to Darfur at this critical time.

It also appears that Luis Moreno-Ocampo is looking to bring justice.

Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, issued a press release indicating that it would rule on March 4 on the question of whether to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Justice in Darfur

See the interview with Foreign Policy Magazine

Caterpillars, the new Charles Taylor?

Liberia is under attack...by caterpillars. No joke, the UN reports:

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the caterpillars -- the suspects are African armyworms -- are inching across norther Liberia in numbers so vast they can only be described as "hordes." They are infecting precious food and water supplies, destroying the environment, and endangering health. Worse, they may spread into neighboring West African countries, igniting a kind of regional catastrophe not seen since (albeit very different from) Liberian warlord Charles Taylor enmeshed the region in war. With no solution yet apparent, the crisis calls to mind some sort of twisted horror movie.

Photo Essay of Gaza, Children and War

Foreign Policy Magazine has a photo essay of Gaza, Children, and War:

The U.N. has turned 23 of its schools into shelters for Gazans displaced by the fighting. But taking refuge in a school is no guarantee of safety. On Jan. 6, Israeli soldiers fired mortar shells at a school in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Forty-two people were killed, and Palestinian medical officials said many were civilians.

Albinos in Tanzania

At least 35 albinos were killed in Tanzania in 2008, prompting police officials to set up an emergency hot line and a program to distribute free cell phones to all albinos. Slate reports:

Albinism, a genetic disorder characterized by lack of melanin pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health

Around the world, between one in 17,000 and one in 20,000 people are albinos. The prevalence in parts of Africa, however, is far higher than the global average. Albinos make up about one in 4,000 people in South Africa and perhaps one in 5,000 in Nigeria.

According to a 2006 review published in the journal BMC Public Health, the prevalence in Tanzania is one in 1,400, but this estimate is based on incomplete data. Since Tanzania's total population is more than 40 million, that would suggest an albino community of about 30,000. A census is under way, however, and the Albino Association of Tanzania believes the total figure could be more than 150,000.

Prosecuters want 147 Years for "Chuckie" Taylor

U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father's reign.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr. is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 9 by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga. His conviction was the first use of a 1994 law allowing prosecution in the U.S. for acts of torture committed overseas.

A recent Justice Department court filing describes torture - which the U.S. has been accused of in the war on terror - as a "flagrant and pernicious abuse of power and authority" that warrants severe punishment of Taylor.

"It undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule of law," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller in last week's filing. "The gravity of the offense of torture is beyond dispute."

A jury convicted Emmanuel in October of torture and torture conspiracy involving seven victims and use of a firearm in a violent crime. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Emmanuel, a U.S. citizen born in Boston, was head of the Antiterrorist Unit in Liberia from 1997 to 2003, when his father left power. Trial testimony described the ATU, also known as the "Demon Forces," as an elite battalion used to silence opponents of the president, train fighters for other African conflicts and conduct brutal interrogations of prisoners.

Witnesses described horrific torture techniques involving electric shocks, molten plastic, lit cigarettes, hot clothes irons, bayonets and even biting ants shoveled onto people's bodies. Prisoners were often kept in water-filled pits covered by heavy iron grates and barbed wire.

The Dangers of Firewood

From the United Nations:

In displaced persons camps in Darfur, women -- who risk "only" being raped, rather than being killed -- face constant danger whenever they venture out of the camps to collect firewood. As Liv Ullman, honorary chair of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, reminds us, though, sexual violence is not the only threat associated with gathering firewood, and nor are women in Darfur the only ones who are endangered.

Nor is sexual violence the only aspect of the problem. Firewood, burned indoors, produces toxic fumes that threaten the health of children. The need for firewood is frequently a rationale for keeping girls out of school. And its collection -- which often includes cutting down trees on agriculturally marginal land -- is a major factor in irreversible environmental degradation.

MSF's Top Ten Humanitarian Crisis of 2008

Medicines sans Frontieres (a.k.a Doctors Without Borders) released its annual list if the years' top ten humanitarian crises.

• Somalia's Humanitarian Catastrophe Worsens
• Beyond the International Spotlight, Critical Health Needs in Myanmar Remain Unmet
• Health Crisis Sweeps Zimbabwe as Violence and Economic Collapse Spread
• Civilians Trapped as War Rages in Eastern Congo
• Millions of Malnourished Children Left Untreated Despite Advances in Lifesaving Nutritional Therapies
• Critical Need of Assistance in Ethiopia's Somali Region
• Civilians Killed and Forced to Flee as Fighting Intensifies in Northwestern Pakistan
• No End in Sight to Violence and Suffering in Sudan
• Iraqi Civilians in Urgent Need of Assistance
• HIV/TB Co-infections Posses Health Battle on Two Fronts

The links will take you to a detailed description of each individual crisis, accompanied by slides and photos of what MSF is up against. It is a powerful reminder that we in politically stable communities with functioning health systems have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

Developing Countries and the 2008/2009 Slowdown

December's startling news that Chinese trade shrank for the first time since 2001 and that India's industrial output fell for the first time since 1994 will have dispelled any remaining hope that developing countries would be insulated from the global financial crisis.

Developing countries’ economies have been growing faster than those of developed countries for some time, including remarkable growth in African countries. But it is now clear that the financial crisis that emerged in the financial sector in developed countries and then spread to developed countries’ real sectors, such as manufacturing, has already affected confidence in the financial markets of emerging economies, and is starting to affect poorer countries.

(HT: ODI)

No Words Necessary

Chuckie Taylor Sentenced

Earlier I posted about Chuckie Taylor, son of Charles Taylor on trial in Miami for human rights violations. Here is an update: He was convicted last week in Federal Court of committing torture when he was with his father in Liberia.

What makes Taylor’s conviction news (although only news overseas, apparently, since it didn’t make any of the leading U.S. newspapers) is that it is the first conviction under the 1994 Extraterritorial Torture Statute, 18 U.S.C 2340 and 2340A, which was enacted to implement U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture. This statute has a very broad scope and is one of those few U.S. criminal statutes that appears to embrace a theory of universal jurisdiction. Typically, U.S. criminal statutes confine themselves to prescriptive jurisdiction based on territory, effects, nationality, etc. But 18 USC 2340(A)(b) makes clear that this statute applies to acts committed in a foreign country whether or not the defendant is a U.S. national or whether or not the victim is a U.S. national.

The district court in this case rejected a number of constitutional challenges to the law, citing the treaty power and the “define and punish offenses against the law of nations” power as the source of congressional authority under the act. I haven’t examined these arguments carefully, but they sound right to me although there is, as far as I know, relatively little judicial precedent on these questions. The most difficult challenge is not presented here, but might be presented in a future case involving the prosecution of a non-U.S. national for actions he or she took outside the territory of the U.S. that did not affect any U.S. nationals or U.S. interests. In other words, has Congress embraced a theory of universal jurisdiction in 18 USC 2340(A)(b)? It certainly seems that way.

[HT: Exploring International Law]

Lets Help Haiti

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and this year it was ravished by four back to back storms.  The Bush administration promised Haiti $10 million in emergency aid and Congress has since authorized $100 million for relief and reconstruction. The United Nations has issued a global appeal for another $100 million.

Outside of aid, however, the U.S. can and should do something else. According to a NYT opinion piece, it should grant “temporary protected status” to undocumented Haitians in the United States, so they can live and work legally as their country struggles back from its latest catastrophe.  

This is the same protection that has been given for years, in 18-month increments, to tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and others whose countries have been afflicted by war, earthquakes and hurricanes.  While the Bush administration has temporarily stopped deporting Haitians since Hurricane Ike last month, it has not been willing to go the next step of officially granting temporary protected status to the undocumented Haitians living here. There is very little that is consistent in the United States’ immigration policies toward its nearest neighbors, except that the rawest deal usually goes to the Haitians. Cubans who make it to dry land here are allowed to stay; those intercepted at sea are not. Hondurans and Nicaraguans who fled Hurricane Mitch 10 years ago have seen their temporary protected status renewed, as have Salvadorans uprooted by earthquakes in 2001.

Haiti meets the qualifications met by other countries for temporary protected status as the country is devastated by the environmental damage caused by the hurricanes- not to mention that it is also involved in an ongoing civil conflict.