Haiti Immigrants

According to this article, many of the Haiti refugees have been received with less than optimum hospitality upon entering the United States. Because they did not have visas when they entered the country, they were taken into custody by immigration authorities and held for deportation. Some received tourist visas (which barred them from getting jobs), some received humanitarian parole (a status that allows them to find employment), and some landed in immigration jails. Those that were jailed were denied psychological help for traumatization due to surviving the earthquake, and no date has been set for their release.

According to the article, Marines waved the earthquate survivors onto the plane; the refugees assumed that they would be treated well once they reached the United States. However, no thought was spared as to what their actual fate would be. Although I approve of the military's swift actions in getting people out of the unstable country, more thought should have been put into determining whether doing so would actually be beneficial.

Something else that annoyed me was the fact that there are some individuals who have family and loved ones currently residing legally in the country, and their families have been unable to secure the refugee's release. They often aren't even alerted when the jailed refugees are transported to obscure immigration jails.

An advocate for the release of the Haitian refugees sums up my opinion perfectly:
“There is no reason to spend taxpayer dollars detaining traumatized earthquake survivors who cannot be deported and who have demonstrated that they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.”