How Do You Spell “Success”?

Intrigued by the slug in this op-ed by Andrew Selee in the New York Times, “On Migration, Will the Americas Succeed Where Europe Could Not?”, I was saddened but not surprised by Dr. Selee’s definition of success:

The U.S. government might also think about opening up a special parole program — an express legal entry — for a limited number of Haitians who want to move to the United States and reopening the one for Cubans, which has been suspended in practice for four years. If some Haitians living in Chile and Brazil were eligible for entry into the United States under this approach, many would decide to avoid a dangerous journey through the Darién Gap.

Such a program would also make it easier for the U.S. government to negotiate the return of Haitian migrants who reach the border to these countries, where many have lived for years, instead of to Haiti. This is another useful principle: the idea of returning people to countries where they have been settled for many years, rather than back to countries of origin that are in deep crisis.

Another principle might be burden sharing. The United States and Canada have already been trying to expand their resettlement efforts for imperiled Central Americans. Speeding up this process and extending it to Venezuelans and others would provide another important alternative to irregular migration for those in imminent danger.

Several points. First, Haiti has been in “deep crisis” since it became a country. There is no time over the entire 200 years that it has not been in crisis. Second, there’s a dramatic difference between Cuba and Haiti. The Cuban “special parole program” was set up largely for the Cuban middle class who became political refugees after Castro’s revolution in the 1950s. It grew beyond that scope over the years but that’s a different subject. Almost all Haitian migrants are economic migrants.

Additionally, I would like to hear Dr. Selee’s argument for the U. S.’s acceptance of more Haitian migrants. Just over half of Haitian adults are literate. Those that are literate are, by and large, literate in Haiti’s language—Creole. Only about 5% of Haitians speak French and fewer speak Spanish or English (although more speak Spanish than English). I see little evidence that the U. S. is languishing for lack of illiterate Creole speakers. The slow to no growth in the wages for the lowest quintile of the U. S. population suggests that there is no such demand.

Paradoxically, nearly every Latin American country has a tremendous need for more workers but the workers they need are a) skilled and b) literate in Spanish. That leaves out the Haitian migrants. Wherever they go these migrants inevitably either become dependents of the state or turn to crime. They have little other choice.

My definition of a successful regional strategy would be something like:

1. We should negotiate with other countries in the Americas for them to tighten their own immigration laws and enforcement. The reason that so many Haitian migrants are going to Brazil or Chile is that those countries have loose immigration laws and don’t enforce the laws they have.
2. We should be trying to create conditions in Latin American countries that encourage investment by U. S. companies in them. IMO strong economies will do more to encourage people in Latin America to stay home than any amount of advertising or any wall.
3. Fewer barriers to trade in Latin American countries, particularly trade in services.
4. Less overall migration.