This week’s podcast has a fire sale on immigration commentary: on, for example, our government’s decision to admit 100,000 Haitians to the U.S. to join family members.
I briefly describe the current, orderly system in place for family reunification, with different preference categories, enduring different waiting times—in their home countries, of course—for different degrees of relationship.
Well, the hell with all that! We don’t need no steenkin’ rules, certainly not rules laid down by buttoned up old white guys with no respect for all the vibrant diversity on offer out there beyond our borders.The full Radio Derb playbill:So the administration is just going to waive those rules, ignore that waiting period, and give working visas to tens of thousands of Haitians whose only qualification for being here is, they have a family member here, or can fake having one.
That last clause bears emphasizing. I confidently predict that there will be massive levels of fraud. How do you prove you’re Jean-Baptiste’s brother? You produce a document saying so. Ri-i-ight.
Haiti has 54 percent literacy, placing it number 104 of the 118 nations listed on Wikipedia with a literacy rate, bottom of the second decile in literacy. If you’d like to imagine the opportunities for bribery of public officials, GDP per capita is a rough guide: $1,300 a year. Haiti is ranked 209 out of 228 in the CIA World Factbook. Poverty-wise, that puts them between Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. Holding those facts in your mind, now try to imagine the standard of public record-keeping in Haiti.
You don’t in fact need to imagine. The last family-reunification binge the feds went on was for those unaccompanied minors from Central America—remember them? A July 3rd press release from the House Judiciary Committee found that, quote: “An internal Department of Homeland Security report states there is proven or possible fraud in up to 70 percent of asylum applications.” The Third World laughs at our safeguards and procedures.
