The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
‘They were headed to the United States to apply for asylum. Thousands more are on their way, mostly from Haiti and Central America, but also Cuba, Venezuela and some African countries.
“Because of the worsening global climate crisis, and political and economic instability in these countries, massive migrant campaigns aren’t going away anytime soon. We know that families are coming – we must partner with our North American neighbors and find a humane way to process folks. Many of the [Haitian] children I see waiting in front of the city’s immigration offices in Veracruz were born in Chile or Brazil were born in Chile or Brazil.
“Haiti is a place of resilient, proud people; it is a land of magnificent revolution and considerable natural resources.
“But years of foreign sacking and military interventions by the United States and France took an inevitable toll. This, in addition to corruption dictatorships and ineptitude in the national government, and the doomed-to-fail, self-serving republic of foreign nongovernmental organizations that profited from the development projects, fatally excluded Haitians from their own recovery. . . .
“In Mexico, we’re seen destitute Haitian families heading north for weeks. Why was the U.S. unprepared. . . . .
“I also, in part, welcome the administration’s new guidelines to Immigration and Customs Enforcement not to pursue people merely because of their immigration status. These guidelines, unfortunately, give individual ICE officers considerable discretion over which migrants to detain, which sounds vague and overly broad, and raises serious issues of oversight and enforcement.
So, while it’s true that every nation has the right to regulate foreigners within its borders, there are exceptions that depend on other questions of law. We’ve seen massive waves of migration from countries that the United States helped destabilize over decades. The American government owes a debt in blood to these people and their descendants.
“Democrats must work trilaterally with Mexico and Canada to expedite migration solutions. Families must be able to move, work, enroll their kids in school and have their basic human needs met. . . .” — Massive Migrant Caravans Are on Their Way. Democrats Must Move on Migration Alternatives, Carli Pierson, USA Today, 10/14/21 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: The author, Carli Pierson, states that America has the right to control its borders. This, however, is just a throwaway line to cover her real viewpoint—one made apparent in the rest of the article. She’s pleased that our government is not arresting illegal aliens “merely” because of their immigration status. This hardly sounds like someone committed to effective border control. She portrays mass migration as some unstoppable force of nation we can’t control—so we shouldn’t even try. To the contrary, these movements drastically slowed down when the Trump Administration enhanced border enforcement.
The author depicts migrants as asylum seekers, saying that they are fleeing poverty and other unpleasant conditions. These problems, however, do not qualify an applicant for asylum. It requires a “well-founded fear” of government persecution. Most migrants now don’t qualify on this basis, as evidenced by the fact that they pass through other countries before reaching the U.S. If escaping persecution were their true concern they could find safety in those countries. Restrictions by the Trump Administration helped to stem the flood of bogus asylum claims, but the Biden Administration did away with them. Predictably the surge of fraudulent asylum seekers began again.
Pierson describes difficult conditions in Haiti as the reason Haitians are leaving, but–inadvertently perhaps–she reveals the truth when she notes the Haitian children from Chile and Brazil. In fact, most recent Haitian migrants to the U.S.—of all ages—came from those countries. They settled there after leaving Haiti, and in many cases were enjoying a good standard of living. Nevertheless, they figured they could do even better in America.
It is true, as Pierson states, that the United States has destabilized some countries. But Haiti isn’t one of them. Its numerous problems are pretty much of its own making. If Haiti is indeed a land with natural resources and “resilient” people, they should stay there and try to improve their lives. We can encourage them to do that by enforcing our immigration laws.