From Restore Fairness blog

On January 12th, 2010, the already impoverished Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, was hit by an earthquake that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale. Frighteningly, that is all that is quantifiable about the disaster at the moment, with thousands trapped under rubble and the scale of destruction to lives and infrastructure yet unknown.

So how much more devastation does the nation of Haiti need to go through before the U.S. administration is convinced that the country is not equipped to cope with the thousands of Haitians who are currently facing deportation back to Haiti?

Between August and September of 2008 Haiti was hit with four tropical cyclones (Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) which killed 800 people, displaced many thousands, and destroyed the economy of the country. Directly following those disasters the Bush administration faced pressure to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians living in the U.S., a temporary amnesty, given in 18-month increments to immigrants stranded in the U.S.

The Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately...Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war); An environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane); Other extraordinary and temporary conditions.

But not only did the Bush administration fail to include Haiti within the nations whose citizens are granted TPS (namely Sudan, Somalia, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua), but soon after the Obama administration called for the deportation of 30,000 Haitians that President Bush had ordered. Unable to copy with the influx of so many deportees, the Haitian government ceased issuing travel documents for them, resulting in hundreds of deportees being held in detention centers even after they were flown back to Haiti.

At the time in March 2009, many  expressed outrage at the administration's treatment of Haitian immigrants and demanded TPS for Haitians in the U.S. based on the horrific "conditions on the ground" in Haiti,

Gonaives, Haiti's third largest city, is uninhabitable; most of the nation's livestock, food crops, farm tools and seeds destroyed; irrigation systems demolished; collapsed buildings throughout the country; 800,000 people left homeless and more than 800 dead. USAID estimates that 2.3 million Haitians now face "food insecurity," reeling from prices 40 percent higher than in January.

One year and another natural disaster later, the pressure to grant TPS to undocumented Haitians in the U.S. has reached its peak. On Wednesday, three Republican Member of Congress, Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote a joint letter to President Obama calling for immediate granting of TPS to Haitian nationals. Democrat Alcee Hastings added his name to the appeal, stating it was "not only immoral, but irresponsible" to not allow Haitians to remain in the U.S. Additionally, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand addressed a letter to the President saying,

Now is certainly not the time to deport Haitians into an overly burdened country...Haiti clearly meets the criteria for TPS designation and extending it would be one way to help address this catastrophe, as well as alleviate additional burdens on American assistance workers.

Yesterday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano temporarily halted deportations to Haiti, and today Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated they may be moving towards TPS for Haitians. As it stands, those Haitians already in detention, such as Haitian activist Jean Montrevil, will continue to remain detained.

In their appeal to Obama, a number of immigrant advocacy organizations such as National Immigration Forum expressed their relief at the U.S. government's support for Haiti but asked for more long term revisions of the immigration policy,

We find some consolation that the Administration is acting quickly to mobilize relief efforts to Haiti. We support the latest Immigration and Customs Enforcement announcement that it is halting all deportations of Haitian immigrants for the time being, in light of the devastation caused by yesterday’s earthquake...These are the right immediate initial responses. But as part of its long term relief effort, the Administration must grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitian immigrants who are now in the U.S.

Granting Haitian nationals TPS would release those in detention centers, unite them with their families, allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., and contribute to the economy in the U.S. and recovery of Haiti. It would also help undocumented Haitians across the U.S. Overall it would impact 125,000 Haitians.

When President Obama said, “You will have a friend and partner in the people of the United States today, and going forward,” we certainly hope that support extends itself to aiding those Haitians who are here.

We urge you to sign a petition, sign a letter to Obama and join a facebook group in support of TPS. And if you are looking for a reliable way to contribute to the earthquake, donate here.

Why would we spend money on something called "volcano monitoring"? Hmm...

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I want to follow up on something that I mentioned last night and that Charles wrote about as well: The offensive attack Bobby Jindal and the Republican Party made on disaster preparedness during his response to Barack Obama's address to Congress.

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, about 50 miles from Mount Hood, an 11,249-foot volcano that has been active in the past few hundred years, and only about 75 miles from Mount St. Helens, the eruption of which led to dozens of fatalities not even 30 years ago. Most of my family still lives in Portland, and I am in the city on a fairly regular basis. In the event that Hood, St. Helens, or any other volcano in the region were to blow, I would most certainly want the federal government to have done all it could on the detection front so that my family had ample warning to get to safety. Do Bobby Jindal and the Republican Party begrudge me that?

At present, I live in Berkeley, California, which is nearly constantly experiencing earthquakes. It has been just two decades since an earthquake killed 69 people in the region, and just a century since another earthquake killed more than 3,000 people. By the logic presented by Bobby Jindal last night in the official Republican response to President Obama's address, should I and the millions living in the Bay Area not have the latest detection technology to ensure our safety?

And it goes beyond volcano or earthquake detection. Should the people in the Plains states not be protected by the latest in meteorological technology to alert them in the case of a twister or a dust storm? Should the people in the Rockies not be enabled to detect avalanches? Should the people in the Gulf Coast -- including the residents of Bobby Jindal's own state of Louisiana -- not have the resources to track major hurricanes?

Disaster detection is no joke, and Bobby Jindal and the Republican Party ought to know better than to play politics with people's lives.

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When I was at a Big Tent panel this morning, entitled, "Left Behind: What Katrina and a Stolen Election Taught Us About Race and American Politics," a panelist commented on the nature of the media treatment given to disaster victims.

"[These victims] aren't sexy. College students [organizing on behalf of the victims] are sexy."

He was talking about the need for grassroots organizing. Unfortunately, the mainstream press is a business and sex sells. This often means that the people who are in the most need of having their stories heard are often ignored or buried in the media.

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We all remember Hurricane Katrina, and the devestation it left in its wake on the Gulf Coast. In the aftermath, it seemed like everyone wanted to blame everyone else. Local and State Government wanted to blame the national goverment, while the Bush Administration and it's Republican apolegists sought to blame state and local governments to exonerate President Bush's Administration.

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