“The Coming Refugee Debate,” Ellis Henican Column, amNewYork, January 14, 2010
Get ready, Eastern Parkway. You too, Cambria Heights.
Fire up the griot pot. The Haitians are coming to New York.
As sure as Port-au-Prince is now in shambles, a huge new wave of Haitian refugees will soon be heading north.
And controversy almost certainly will greet them.
This has been the story of New York since the days of the Irish potato famine, even before. Something bad happens somewhere.
People suffer terribly. They flee to somewhere they already have friends and relatives – the great immigrant city of New York.
Now a 7.0-magnitude earthquake starts the cycle again.
For the next few days, attention will be focused on rescue and recovery. But with the Rev. Pat Robertson warning about an ancient “deal with the devil” and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh saying Haiti really doesn’t need U.S. help, “Haitian refugees” could easily become a hot-button issue.
The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet approved the Temporary Protective Status that would allow Haitian refugees to stay here without fear of immediate deportation. But that could be coming soon. “TPS is in the range of considerations we consider in a disaster,” said department spokesman Matthew Chandler.
By Wednesday night, Washington already had agreed to temporarily halt Haitian deportations. And by Thursday morning, Hillary Clinton was raising the possibility of temporary asylum for the coming refugees.
“Most [Haitians] are here legally,” the secretary of state said. “Some are not documented. And the Obama administration is taking steps to make sure that people are given some temporary status so that we don’t compound the problem.”
The challenge is huge and predictable.
Their homeland, already the poorest in the Americas, almost certainly will be unable to support however much of the population survives. The lucky ones soon will be seeking somewhere to live, somewhere to work, somewhere to be treated for their injuries, somewhere to start again.
Somewhere like New York.