Homeless Haitians Told Not To Flee to U.S. - The U.S. State Department has been broadcasting via radio to Haitians: "(We) will intercept you on the water and send you back home where you came from." Kerry Howley comments via Twitter "Massive monetary aid to Haiti looks very cynical through immigration lens." ...Indeed, opening our doors to refuges is probably the best thing the United States could do to relieve suffering in Haiti. However, that doesn't appear to be an option politically for the current administration.
In the long-term, The biggest help the United States could give to Haiti's economy would be to repeal tarrifs on Haitian sugar. Unfortunately, this policy also has a significant special interest group opposed to it: domestic sugar producers. Those producers are dominant politically even though the potential benefits in lower food expenses to U.S. consumers from a liberalized sugar marker outweigh the excess profits producers are currently making from their captive market.
The fact to find depressing about this is that it shows how little of a voice Haitians have in the United States. U.S. aid to Haiti is definitely helpful... But the policies we could adopt to really help Haitians are not even on the table because of their slight costs to American special interests. If 1/100 as many Americans were suffering you can bet the goverment would take every step necessary to help (And would be heavily criticized for any failings, as in New Orleans. I'm not saying we should treat this the same as a domestic disaster, but we can easily do more. The current U.S. Administration is providing some important and very public help to Haiti, but certainly not the best help.
Update: The U.S. has now also banned commercial air travel from Port-au-Prince due to security concerns.
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