Will exporting Haiti’s people solve Haiti’s problems as Elliott Abrams suggests in his op-ed:
A larger Haitian diaspora would be a far better base for the country’s economic future than aid pledges that may or may not be met. If several hundred thousand more Haitians were able to migrate, those Dominican, Honduran or Salvadoran numbers suggest that remittances to Haiti would give its economy a huge and continuing jolt.
This would require Canada, France and the United States — the First World countries with the largest Haitian diaspora communities — to adopt a different and more liberal immigration policy toward Haiti. Canada has already stepped up, expediting immigration applications from Haitians with family members living there. Canada’s immigration minister noted that “we anticipate there will be a number of new applications, which we will treat on a priority basis.”
I think that this is one of those ideas that look a lot better flying over the country at 30,000 feet than it does when you consider the situation on the ground.
About 40% of Haiti’s population is under the age of 15, presumably not the part of the population that Mr. Abrams is considering as prospective workers in the United States, Canada, or France. A little over 50% of the remainder is in the prime working age of 15 to 64. Note that 50 and older is a lot older in Haiti than it is here: life expectancy at birth in Haiti is 60.
The urbanization rate is under 50%. The literacy rate is 53%. The language spoken by the greatest number of people is Creole French, a dialect of French rather different from the French of L’Académie française. Is there really a great demand in the United States for illiterate young men (most economic migrants are young men) who don’t speak English and don’t have urban skills?
The unemployment rate here in the United States for young black men without high school educations already tops 50%. While I have no doubt that moving to the United States would be a godsend for the Haitians who come here, I’m more skeptical that a “Haitian diaspora” will solve Haiti’s problems. Unemployed people send few remittances.
If Mr. Abrams is suggesting that Haiti send its relatively few educated English-speaking workers to the United States, aren’t those precisely the workers that Haiti needs most?
Here’s an alternative proposition.
The relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti in per capita income, education, and skills is roughly the same as the relationship between the United States and Mexico, complete with illegal immigration, nativist anti-immigration movement, and coyotes. Most Dominicans are literate and live in cities. How about allowing more Dominican workers into the United States and encouraging a legal Haitian guestworker program in the Dominican Republic? That would have many of the benefits that Mr. Abrams is suggesting and IMO those benefits would be more likely to be realized.
I remain skeptical about the assumptions of Mr. Abrams’s suggestion. Mexico’s diaspora population has been sending remittances home from the United States for decades. Has that enabled Mexico to solve its problems? Or has it reduced social cohesion in Mexico and exacerbated the problems the country already had?
I’ve actually heard some people say we should annex Haiti and make it another Puerto Rico.
Dave Schuler’s suggestion to allow some sort of “guest worker” program between Haiti and the D.R. similar to that of the US and Mexico is not likely to solve any of Haiti’s problems because fundamentally the real problem is not poverty nor cultural differences but it is Haiti’s unsustainable population as it is now. The country is broken and I can only see a future of despotism and Pol Pot style tyranny that will eventually lead to a dramatic decline in its population. Most of the people alive in Haiti today will not live to see any sort of future, let alone provide one for their progeny. But I am not really blaming Haitians for their predicament: how about the Catholic Church? the Moral Majority in the US? Spanish, British and French colonialism? racism? just really bad luck historically? and don’t forget such patronizing politicians world wide such as Bill Clinton who could have done something before things became so desperate? Regardless, the sitiation is Haiti is really a preview of the future of almost the entire underdeveloped/exploited world. The US is not far behind and will probably be the source of some bizarre draconian social experiments by mid century to lower its population.
Send the Haitians to China where all our other jobs have gone. If we want a job now, we must move to China. There are no decent employment opportunities in the U.S. any more. My favorite restarant (employing 14) just closed its doors! That’s the fifteenth restaurant in my hood this year! There are no jobs at McDonalds any more.
Dave,
Mexico has come a long way, thanks in part to remittances sent to Mexico by our dear expats, some six and a half million of them, who chose to cross the border legally and illegally too and sacrifice for their families back home because our economic crisis obligated did not provide enough jobs for them when they left. But most Mexicans are choosing to stay home now, and only a tiny, very tiny minority tries to move north today and the numbers are shrinking even more each year. Soon we will see the day when no Mexican will need to risk his life and leave his country to find opportunity to work and feed his family.
However in spite of the many troubles, Mexico has come a very long way thanks to the more than a hundred and ten million of Mexican people who chose to stay back home. We have not stayed home to cry, we have been working hard too, and it shows.
Although there are still many people from Mexico trying to move to the US, at least two thirds of the people who cross illegaly are not Mexicans anymore, they are central and south americans who cross our border to get to the US. It is estimated by the UN that nearly half a million central and south americans cross Mexico to arrive to the US border and cross illegaly each year. Last year Mexico deported more than two hundred thousand central and south americans.
Mexico is today the US´s second largest trade partner, we buy more american goods and services than China, in fact we buy more american goods than any other country in the world except Canada and we are catching up with Canada real fast as our middle classes continue to expand, we will soon become the largest market for american made goods and services in the world.
Mexico is the 11th largest economy in the world. Our exports represent more than 30% of all latinamerican exports, we export more than Brazil and Argentina together and our exports are more manufactured goods than primary and agricultural products. We do not export large volumes of commodities like Brazil or Argentina, but high value added products, like cars, aircrafts, medical equipment, computers and all kinds of manufactured products.
There are some 18 thousand american companies established in Mexico and there are thousands of Mexican companies also present in the US too. There are more than a million and a half americans who have chosen to live in Mexico, the country with the largest american population outside the US, and half a million Canadians live in Mexico too, and ten of thousands of europeans who have also chosen to live here.
Our country´s macroeconomics have been solid for more than a decade and a half, Mexico´s economy is highly integrated to the US and the Canadian economy and our balance trade with the US is well balanced, unlike China´s or Japan´s.
The United States gave Mexico an opportunity with the NAFTA and Mexico has resulted a reliable partner and we took the opportunity to industrialize our country. In 1980 Mexico´s oil represented more than 80% of our exports, we were a commodity country, today oil represents less than 6% of our exports to the world and manufactured goods represent more than 75% of our total exports to the world.
Thank you for the feedback, Jose.
If you look around my site, you will find that, unlike many of my countrymen, I am unconcerned about immigration from Mexico to the United States, viewing it mostly as a short term phenomenon which the case that you have presented in your comment fully supports.
Thank you for your reply, Dave.
I was looking around precisely.
I can be emotional sometimes, but I also know I will always find criticism to Mexico in many blogs, and that is not bad, I think it is good. A lot of times Mexicans try to compare themselves to latinamericans only, because then we don´t look so bad to ourselves. But I believe we want to compare ourselves better to Americans, be want to be measured by the best standards in the world.