Obama to Haitians: Patience on immigration

U.S. President Barack Obama’s actions on immigration reform have been few and far between. While some changes by Homeland Security are welcome far more needs to be done in order to a broken immigration system in dire need of being fixed. Just ask the Haitian community.

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the Americas and a rash of tropical storms last year, Haiti has had to endure tighter immigration policies under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Attempts to get temporary protection status for Haitian migrants have been repeatedly rejected while delays have caused a backlog in deportations to Haiti. A bipartisan group of senators traveled to Haiti last month and urged the White House to take prompt and decisive action regarding migrants from that Caribbean country.

Despite the growing clamor from politicos and the Haitian community, Obama’s reply was disappointing: keep waiting.

Obama said his administration is still reviewing U.S. policy on deporting undocumented Haitians and would not commit to whether he supports allowing undocumented Haitian migrants to stay and work in the United States temporarily…

Obama said Friday the review is not yet done, ``so I'm not prepared to make news here today.''

But he said he was ``very sympathetic to the fact that Haiti has gone through very difficult times, that a sudden influx of people from Florida back into Haiti would be a potential humanitarian problem.''

He noted that many Haitians have ``put down roots'' in the United States and suggested that a resolution to the situation in Haiti was ``going to be part of a broader conversation about immigration.''

Time is ticking, Mr. President. Act soon before it’s too late.

Image- CBS News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times