December 27, 2017
Page 13
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O PINION
A Cruel Holiday Gift for Haitian Immigrants
Season is filled with
fear and uncertainty
J essiCah P ierre
Two months af-
ter experiencing the
devastating 7.0 mag-
nitude
earthquake
that hit Haiti in Janu-
ary 2010, my dad fi-
nally made it back home to Boston. What
had started as a holiday vacation turned
into weeks of sleeping outside the family
home in Haiti, fearful that it would col-
lapse on anyone sleeping inside.
My family members lived that way
for weeks, as daily aftershocks kept
them reliving the traumatic experience
that rattled the country’s capital. They
never knew whether the next aftershock
wouldn’t kill them as the quake had
killed their neighbors nearby.
This devastating natural disaster took
nearly 316,000 lives and displaced 1.5
million Haitians. Many of these victims
by
sought refuge in the United States — le-
gally, under a classification called Tem-
porary Protective Status.
Now again, in this holiday season —
eight years after the quake — they’re
reliving this fear and uncertainty. The
Trump administration has moved to end
the program, causing many Haitians to
face deportation after July 2019.
For these Haitian immigrants, Tempo-
rary Protective Status offered a chance to
start fresh and build a new life — an op-
portunity that’s hard to come by in Haiti,
a country that’s spent decades struggling
with widespread poverty.
Widespread poverty that the U.S. has
contributed to both economically and po-
litically.
See, the U.S. has a long history with
Haiti, dating back to the early 1800s when
Haiti defeated France in the world’s first
successful slave rebellion, leading Haiti
to become the first independent black na-
tion.
While black people around the world
celebrate this moment in history, this vic-
tory didn’t come without costs.
After the 1804 revolution, France
found a way to gain economic control
of Haiti, forcing the new country to pay
back 150 million francs for the enslaved
Haitians that were freed after the war.
In order to pay this debt, Haiti was
forced to take out a major loan from the
young U.S., which didn’t recognize Hai-
ti for another 60 years. This debt wasn’t
paid off till 1947, at a current value of
over $20 billion.
Haiti’s economic dependency on the
U.S. didn’t end there, though. From 1957
to 1986, Haiti’s government was run by
two U.S.-backed dictators, “Papa Doc”
and “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
“Duvalier stole millions from Haiti and
ran up hundreds of millions in debt that
Haiti still owes. Ten thousand Haitians
lost their lives,” longtime Haiti human
rights advocate Bill Quigley explained in
the Huffington Post. “Estimates say that
Haiti owes $1.3 billion in external debt
and that 40 percent of that debt was run
up by the U.S.-backed Duvaliers.”
Although this era had a ripple effect
of negative consequences that the people
of Haiti still face, the U.S. continues to
play a big role in Haitian economics and
politics, including efforts to rebuild the
nation after the earthquake.
But instead of using relief funds to
provide some much needed assistance
to the country, the Red Cross used half a
billion dollars to build just six permanent
homes in Haiti.
Now, the Trump administration’s de-
cision to terminate Temporary Protective
Status will force up to 60,000 Haitians
back to a country that’s still facing food
shortages, widespread homelessness, and
lack of access to schools and medical fa-
cilities to say the least.
This isn’t only wrong — it’s inhu-
mane. The U.S. should use this as an op-
portunity to reverse the damage it’s done
to Haiti.
Jessicah Pierre is the inequality media
specialist at the Institute for Policy Stud-
ies. Distributed by Otherwords.org.
A Year that Awakened and Energized America
We cannot and
must not lose our
momentum
M arC h. M orial
“You see, we may en-
counter many defeats,
but we must not be de-
feated. It may even be
necessary to encounter
the defeat, so that we can know who we
are,” — Dr. Maya Angelou, American
author and civil rights activist.
Without any fear of exaggeration, it
can be said, and has been—repeated-
ly—that the final result of the 2016 pres-
idential election came as a devastating
blow to many Americans. The numbers
bear out this truth. Hillary Clinton won
the popular vote by nearly three million
votes, but in the end, failed to secure the
win.
So as the reality of an American future
under Trump began to sink in, many an-
ticipated the worst and lost hope. But as
this year comes to a close, it occurred to
me that the election outcome has awak-
ened and energized millions of Ameri-
cans.
Each unprecedented challenge to ev-
erything from immigration policy to the
freedom and relevancy of the press, has
nurtured a common sense of purpose
among Americans from all walks of life.
From sea to shining sea, those committed
to building and sustaining a better and
by
more equitable America, conclusively
demonstrate an often-repeated truth: de-
mocracy is no spectator sport.
To be clear, there was never—and nev-
er will be—a right time to sit and watch
from the comfort of the sidelines.
A democracy deprived of the active,
vocal and voting engagement of its citi-
zens is a democracy in name only. Rather
than stand by complacently as the current
administration volleys direct assaults
on our nation’s most vulnerable and at-
tempts to wipe out the incremental civil
Roem became the first openly transgen-
der person to be elected to the state’s
legislature; and Justin Fairfax won the
lieutenant governor’s race, becoming the
second African American to win the post.
And there are more victories where
those came from. Black women—who
are substantially showing up and show-
ing out at the polls—are also getting
elected into many of these offices. Afri-
can American women stand at the helm
of the cities of Charlotte, Atlanta, New
Orleans, and more, as their mayors. And
gathered at airports around the country to
protest the ban’s obvious unfairness, and
courts of law continue to legally chal-
lenge the ban. Today, the third iteration
of the ban has been allowed to go into ef-
fect by the Supreme Court, but the legal
challenges remain alive and well.
We cannot—and must not—lose our
momentum.
The National Urban League will re-
main at the forefront of the battle to pro-
tect our hard-fought-for rights and prog-
ress. Especially now, when the all-out
Doug Jones’s recent win in deep-red
Alabama will send to Congress the state’s
first senator elected by a multi-racial
coalition.
and economic and social gains we have
made with the casual stroke of a heart-
lessly wielded pen or the decrees of un-
instructed policies, we have traded hope-
lessness for the engagement, despair for
activism, and defeat for victory.
The results speak for themselves.
Doug Jones’s recent win in deep-red Al-
abama will send to Congress the state’s
first senator elected by a multi-racial co-
alition. Voters of color also were largely
responsible for Ralph Northam’s victory
in the Virginia governor’s race; Danica
the wins don’t stop at the ballot box.
Despite the best and dogged efforts
of Congress and the president, everyday
Americans, enraged that their healthcare
would be taken away or used as bargain-
ing chip to make the math work for the
GOP’s tax reform bill, rallied, flooded
phone lines and protested in congressio-
nal offices to keep the Trump adminis-
tration from dismantling the Affordable
Care Act.
Trump’s travel bans consistently met
with immediate resistance. Thousands
assault on American ideals and values is
the norm, you can become a key part of
our mission-driven work by getting in-
volved, volunteering, or supporting our
movement.
You have a critical role to play in the
resistance and should never doubt or
become complacent about the power of
your call, your vote, your signature, or
your voice.
Marc H. Morial is president and chief
executive officer of the National Urban
League.