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US Mulls Asylum for Haitian Immigrants: Clinton
PORT-AU-PRINCE - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the United States was considering granting temporary asylum to illegal Haitian immigrants, thousands of whom face imminent expulsion.
"We are looking carefully at the policy which we inherited and we are going to be considering how best (for those) who are here to continue to have those resources," Clinton told reports in Haiti's teeming capital Port-au-Prince.
Haitian President Rene Preval (R) shakes hands with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince during a brief visit. Clinton said Thursday the United States was considering granting temporary asylum to illegal Haitian immigrants, thousands of whom face imminent expulsion. (AFP/Thony Belizaire) "But at the same time, we don't want to encourage other Haitians to make the dangerous journey across the water."
The United States is set to deport more than 30,000 Haitians back to their Caribbean homeland, the poorest country in the Americas which has been hit hard in recent months by a series of hurricanes and natural disasters.
Any changes to temporary protected status (TPS) to allow illegal Haitian immigrants to stay in the United States would be retroactive to before the start of President Barack Obama's administration in January, Clinton said.
"People who were there before President Obama became president would be eligible. People who came after would not be," she cautioned, adding Washington has still not made a final decision.
Haitian President Rene Preval repeatedly urged the previous US administration to grant his fellow countrymen temporary protected status, but his plea fell on deaf ears.
Immigrants from Burundi, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan are currently protected under the policy.
On her whirlwind visit to Haiti the US diplomatic chief said she was "encouraged" by an international donors conference in Washington that pledged some 324 million dollars to help the country.
She said Washington will give Haiti 57 million dollars in extra aid this year as part of the aid package announced at Tuesday's conference led by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Haitian government.
"I believe we still have work to do," Clinton said. "Haiti deserves our help."
Officials said Haiti needed 125 million dollars to fill a budget gap for 2009, but the IDB said the donors committed only 41 million dollars for budget support.
The aid announced by Clinton was mainly for roads and other infrastructure projects needed to boost the economy as well as for food and counter-narcotics efforts.
But some 20 million dollars was set aside to ease Haiti's debt burden and free up money in the budget for other purposes.
Haitian President Rene Preval welcomed the assistance but said Haiti must also be more self-reliant, noting that foreign aid accounts for 60 percent of the country's current budget.
"This percentage must gradually be decreased," Preval said. "This can only be done by concerted efforts to increase our revenue" by strengthening the country's institutions.
Thanks to "political stability" Haiti was also addressing a scourge of armed gangs and kidnappings, Preval told a news conference after meeting with Clinton.
"I'm confident to say that this country can move forward without this threat of armed gangs," Preval said.
But he warned that "despite these advances we have made, the stability is still fragile and needs reinforcement," citing drug trafficking, which he called "an enemy of the rule of law, an enemy against the functioning of democratic institutions.
Clinton was set to travel later Thursday to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Haiti is a former French colony and the Dominican Republic a former Spanish one.
In Santo Domingo, the top US diplomat is due to meet with New York-bred Dominican President Leonel Fernandez and "discuss bilateral development cooperation and efforts to combat drug trafficking," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
Clinton will then join Obama and 33 other democratically-elected leaders of the Western Hemisphere April 17-19 in Port of Spain for the Summit of the Americas.
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8 Comments so far
Show AllWhich Clinton? In 1993 Bill Clinton renegged on promises to allow Haitian refugees into the country after Aristide was deposed (with our help, BTW). Clinton had the Coast Guard pluck the refugees off their pathetic little overloaded lifeboats and send the parched and starving people back to Haiti.
That was an Aha! moment about the slippery character of the man. I was so shaken by the raw cruelty that I wrote a poem comparing this with the way we turned back refugees from Germany in the 30s.
Can Hillary Clinton treat those same people with a modicum of humanity? I hope so, if only to show up her husband's betrayals.
Joe
End the WOD and Haiti, Mexico and all of South America will flourish.
Great! Just what we need, more poor, uneducated, aids ridden immigrants for our taxpayers to support. For you who think this is a good idea I ask; How many are enough?
I live in Brooklyn that has a large Haitian American community. How many Haitian-Americans do you know? Have you ever had one over to your house? Do you know the poets, the painters, the carpenters, the accountants, the nannies, the teachers? There are all kinds of Haitians, and many are poor. Is that a crime? My grandparents were poor and illiterate when they came here.
This is a mean and ignorant post. You should go read the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
Joe
until the US stops stealing resources from the poor countries of the world, so that we can maintain our "lifestyle", we're just going to have to accept these poor, illiterate, aids-ridden refugees - it's what is call reap what you sow. Oh, and "real world" - I think your vision is clouded too much by bigotry to see the "real" world.
Assuming that those immigrants are legalised and documented, they pay taxes too: when they work at jobs that Americans like you will not work at; when they buy food to eat, rent places to stay, etc, they are contributing to the economy too.
Real world you are beyond ignorant. The US is made up of immigrants and doesn't belong to one race or nationality or gender. I can't believe ignorant fools such as yourself still exist in 2009. Come back to reality and picture yourself being in the shoes of the illegal Haitians in the US, or better yet the ones that are still stuck in Haiti! Your post really disgust me!
The following very important and relatively short piece by Stephen Lendman provides very important information, and much enough of it underlines more criminality by Bill Clinton and his sidekick former UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan (both working for the ruling financial elites, ..., imperialists, corporatists, etcetera). People of the USA, Canada, France, and the rest of the world, i.e., Earth, definitely must know about the doings of this criminal duo in Haiti this year.
"Electoral Sham in Haiti", by Stephen Lendman, Apr 16 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13209
I don't expect more than [rhetoric] from Obama on critical human rights issues, (acting against) laws, etcetera; and what this above article says surely sheds some serious light on the real darkness or evil Hillary Clinton's words are really about. I mean, like, when on Earth has she ever been about real good during her years as a member of the U.S. body politic and wife of war criminal Billy?! It's not evil to help people in need to seek better elsewhere by immigrating, but doing [good] is not what the govt of the USA and its real ruling elites (behind closed doors) are really about or have ever really been about; really. When they speak in terms seeming like proposing goodness, then for goodness sake, wake up to not be fooled, for fooled is all people will be in believing that the U.S. government and its real ruling elites care at all about doing real good for any deserving persons!
If the Obama administration wants to do what's right for Haitians, then ... see Stephen Lendman's article for a hint on what needs to be done. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide must be restored to full presidency in Haiti; Haiti's democracy must be respected; the U.S. must cease trying to make Haiti a cheap labour pool of workers for U.S. manufacturers; the U.S. must make sure that all international sanctions, etcetera, against Haiti are lifted once and for all time; the U.S. must provide the restored President Aristide and his government with all necessary assistance in getting Haiti straightened out, which means re-incarceration of all of the criminals the U.S., Canada and France released with their act-of-war coup d'etat against Haiti's government and population on Feb. 29, 2004 (and onward); and ... so on. Otherwise, what Hillary Clinton's talking about is about applying a little bandaid, and that's [at best] what it is or might be.
500 or more years of [slavery] imposed on Haiti and its inhabitants, and still counting! And yes, it's real slavery. After all, foreign powers deny, brutally obstruct, ... the majority of Haitians the right to their [democracy], justice, and so on; [forcing] them to have to fend for a living through sweatshop and other slave labour jobs! It is slavery ... continued(ing)! When people claim slavery no longer exists, then this is a concrete example of the contrary being the truth; slavery continues, definitely.
Hellbent Britain, France, USA!!! Oh, and Canada too!
Whether Satan is really reigning evil on or over our world, i.e., Earth, or not is something I certainly can't attest to one way or the other; not having been an actual witness about this, not per se anyway. But he likely doesn't need to do much anyway. We have enough evil people among political, corporate, ... (etcetera) leadership(s) that Satan can surely relax and watch all of this happening without his help, and all of this on (his) tv. He can realise that we have enough psychopaths without his presence.
It's one way to consider the reality of our world, Earth; what's happening on it because of us and voters who love finding all sorts of nonsense excuses for choosing to vote for so-called lessers of [evils] when lesser is still evil and is often and easily at best in apparence, for in reality the apparences can be deceiving and too often are. They evidently were deceiving about Obama, for the fooled voters, that is.
Senator John McCain could not have done worse as a U.S. president! Obama's administration is so criminal and fraudulent, phony, ... already, that McCain's could have had little trouble at being better. It's not to promote voting for McCain for any political position, ever, for I certainly wouldn't commit such promotion. It's only to say that the Obama administration really isn't any better than the Bush Jr-Cheney administration and McCain's, if he had won, really could have been easily better; not great, but easily better nevertheless.
However, or/and otoh, McCain's campaign struck me as if he was campaigning for Obama to win; of course not explicitly, that is, it would've been without saying he was doing this. He had me wondering a number of times who he was really running his campaign for; himself and the Repubs, or Obama and the Dems (or both?!).
In reality, though, they are a very [merged] set of political parties in the U.S.A., as I believe Pepe Escobar said or explained in a video for a presentation by him and posted at Youtube for TheRealNews(.com); a presentation on I believe the topic of the U.S. (with its NATO allies, and other allies) really aiming for achieving full spectrum dominance and globally so for the real ruling elites (behind closed doors) of the government of the USA. The video can be found at Youtube.com under YT user TheRealNews, but I don't recall the date. A search of YT using Pepe Escobar, full spectrum (or full spectrum dominance), and TheRealNews for search terms might turn up the link for the video ... first thing.
He's [awfully] right. The D&R Parties(y) really [are] very merged, both working for generally the same ruling elites (keeping this always behind closed doors, we know).
Obama does [not] work for The People, but for evil-oriented elites. All we need to do is to [carefully] consider what he and his administration have been doing to be able to see this.