generalspeaking

Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Transformative Upheavals in Migration (Jumping the Queue)

"Come to Canada! They opened the door for the Haitians, for the other nations that don't have papers. You can come here like the same as me. I came in 2007 and now I am a Canadian."
"I am from Florida. All my family lives there, but now I am in Montreal. We are waiting for you!"
Haitian Creole video

To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith."
"Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada."
Twitter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (twit)

"I prayed. I prayed to change my mind . . . I believe in God, so I know he will do something."
"I built a life here. I want to stay here. Before Trump, I felt like I am American. Before him, I felt like I was home."
Edelyne Jean, 35, Haitian, nurse

"The Haitians with TPS [Temporary Protected Status] feel generally that President Trump, himself will not keep his promise, because of the way the administration has been targeting immigrants."
"We were shocked when our community organizer called for our organizing meeting last week. A lot of people answered that they were already in Canada."
"It must be the hardest decision any parent has to make, but they feel they are doing the best to protect their families. It's all about finding stability and a safe haven. Any human being placed in that position could understand why."
Marleine Bastien, executive director, Haitian Women of Miami

"I'm not for people going to Canada; I'm for them staying in their country and build their country."
"The numbers talk for themselves, there are 4.5 million people willing to take a job, who want a job. But officially we have 250,000 who have got a job [in Haiti], and what kind of pay have they got? It will be a very heavy burden for the country if all those people come back."
Alex Saint Surin, Radio Mega network, Miami

"The earthquake saved a lot of people. You can say it. The earthquake helped a lot of Haitians."
"It gave me the opportunity to rebuild. Step by step. I was able to get back the work permit, then the driver's licence . . . hoping that, at some point, I would get to a residency path. That was the expectation."
"Now, I'm facing the same situation that I had to face ten years ago. I'm stronger, yes, but, out of the blue, you have to look for an option to start over whether it's Haiti or another place. It's starting over at 38, when I should be in a better position in my life, financially and professionally."
Farah Larrieux, Miramar, Florida

A family who identified themselves as from Haiti are confronted by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer as they try to enter into Canada from Roxham Road in Champlain, New York, Aug. 7, 2017.

Farah Larrieux had her citizenship claim rejected in 2005 then appealed deportation proceedings. Then the earthquake hit and she was able to take advantage of Haitian citizens in the U.S. granted a reprieve. She launched a career in entertainment, as a television personality and with her Haitian management company, in Miramar, Florida. She cannot conceive at this point in her life that she will once again face deportation.

The goodwill hiatus that Canada and the United States offered Haitians through the offer of temporary haven in the wake of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti has elapsed. Canada lifted its temporary protected visas a year ago for Haitians in the expectation they would return to Haiti and help to rebuild their country. In the United States that protected status is set to be lifted at year's end. It was nothing less than hopeful thinking that Haitians would expect to gain citizenship through the medium of the temporary status visa.

Now that they are faced with the likelihood of that status being cancelled, Canada suddenly seems like a good bet. There is a sizeable expatriate community of Haitians in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada. But these are Haitians who applied through official channels to emigrate from Haiti to Canada to attain landed immigrant status and from there, citizenship. Other than those who declared refugee status, and 50% of those were rejected.

People who want to believe what they want to believe do themselves an injustice when they fail to take the opportunity to inform themselves before embarking on such a serious venture that they are doing the right thing. Those Haitians who have left Miami and entered Canada illegally, bypassing official entry points in favour of venturing across the border between the United States and Canada and declaring themselves refugees are burdening Canada and laying themselves open to disappointment.

A woman and two children ate food handed out by an evangelical church in a park next to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Graham Hughes for The Boston Globe

Canada has an enormous backlog of legal and official applications for immigration to deal with, and what these illegal entrants have done is to feel themselves justified and entitled to bypass the legal route and opt for the illegal one, convincing themselves that they will not be turned away, even as the reality is 50% at least that they will be. And then they will be returned not to the United States but to Haiti.

False information and encouragement was received by a set of people who felt entitled to remain as guests transformed into legal citizens by some strange alchemy of desire making reality. All countries have the right and the obligation to their citizens to select whom they will accept to enter the country and ultimately become citizens. Flooding a country's borders, as migrants from Africa and the Middle East have done in Europe represents a dangerous enterprise for the migrants and a destabilizing event for the receiving countries.

It is, in addition, a not-too-subtle indication that those entering illegally have no respect for the sovereignty of the country they invade, and that their presence in such numbers, and cultural/religious influence on the invaded country will be deleterious to the best interests of nations experiencing first hand and swiftly how that alien presence, unwilling to integrate into the prevailing values, customs and laws of the country they enter become degraded.