Title
Urging the Obama Administration to Create a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program to Help Haiti Recover, Save Lives, and End a Double Standard.
Body
WHEREAS, On January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered one of history's greatest catastrophes, an earthquake which killed at least 250,000, left millions homeless and injured, and destroyed Haitian and international institutional resources and infrastructure; and
WHEREAS, Haiti is the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation and one of the poorest in the world; and
WHEREAS, On January 14, 2010, President Obama said that the disaster in Haiti "is one of those moments that call out for American's leadership"; and
WHEREAS, Remittances to Haiti are 20% of Haiti's GDP and "key" to Haiti's recovery, according to the World Bank, and therefore should be increased if possible; and
WHEREAS, The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as of November 1, 2010 had approved immigrant visa petitions for 105,193 Haitian beneficiaries who nevertheless remain on a wait list of up to 11 years in Haiti, where they remain at risk from cholera, gender-based violence, tent city conditions, and political and environmental turmoil, waiting for visa priority dates to become current; and
WHEREAS, Many of these already-DHS-approved beneficiaries will likely not survive up to another 11 years given these dangerous post-quake conditions in Haiti; and
WHEREAS, If even one fourth of these 105,193 DHS-approved approved beneficiaries, instead of suffering and remaining at risk in Haiti, a burden on Haiti's government and on the international community, were reunited with their petitioning families here, working, and sending remittances back home, about 300,000 quake victims in Haiti would benefit from those life-saving funds; and
WHEREAS, DHS recently renewed the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, which it created in 2007 and under which nearly 25,000 approved Cuban beneficiaries were paroled into the United States ...
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