On May 24, Haitian-American elected and com­mu­nity lead­ers held a press con­fer­ence at North Miami City Hall to express their dis­ap­point­ment with the pres­i­dent for fail­ing to expe­dite Hait­ian fam­ily reuni­fi­ca­tion, despite bipar­ti­san sup­port for such relief dat­ing back 29 months to Haiti’s Jan­u­ary 2010 earth­quake.  Their dis­ap­point­ment was widely reported locally and could have national repercussions.

The issue involves 112,000 ben­e­fi­cia­ries of family-based visa peti­tions who, despite Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity (DHS) approvals, remain on 3 to 11-year wait­ing lists in Haiti, where many may not sur­vive given the con­di­tions there.  Expe­dit­ing their entry into the United States has prece­dent and bipar­ti­san sup­port because it would save their lives and gen­er­ate badly needed remit­tances to help Haiti recover, while cost­ing vir­tu­ally nothing.

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Nor is con­gres­sional action needed; just a White House instruc­tion to DHS Sec­re­tary Janet Napoli­tano.  But it hasn’t been forth­com­ing: there has been only silence, thus the Hait­ian community’s dis­ap­point­ment, now being increas­ingly expressed in public.

There’s a pal­pa­ble sense of unfair­ness: DHS in 2010 extended the excel­lent Cuban Fam­ily Reuni­fi­ca­tion Parole Pro­gram (FRPP), which it cre­ated in 2007 and under which over 30,000 approved Cuban ben­e­fi­cia­ries have been paroled since 2009.

Sup­port for doing the same for Haitians is bipar­ti­san and began 29 months ago right after the earth­quake.  In March 2010, Repub­li­can U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (of Florida), now  Chair of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, joined Demo­c­ra­tic Rep. John Cony­ers (of Michi­gan)  and six other House mem­bers urg­ing DHS to cre­ate a Hait­ian FRPP to “mir­ror” the Cuban one.

They’ve been joined by nearly 100 Con­gressper­sons, includ­ing vir­tu­ally every mem­ber of the Con­gres­sional Black Cau­cus, Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Marco Rubio and Scott Brown, and Sen­a­tors Kerry, Leahy, Durbin, Cardin, Gilli­brand, Menen­dez, Laut­en­berg and Bill Nelson.

Also urg­ing the Pres­i­dent to do this are the Republican-controlled Florida State Sen­ate, Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Deval Patrick, the city coun­cils of New York City, Philadel­phia and other cities, the U.S. Con­fer­ence of May­ors, and ten major news­pa­per edi­to­r­ial boards, among many others.

And ear­lier this month, Mass­a­chu­setts State Sen­a­tor Linda Dorcena Forry sub­mit­ted to the White House peti­tions from over 6,000 per­sons urg­ing cre­ation of a Hait­ian FRPP.

A full 27 months ago, on March 22, 2010, the Miami Her­ald’s edi­to­r­ial board wrote: “There is no valid argu­ment for fail­ing to move quickly on this front.”  Later Miami Her­ald edi­to­ri­als referred to a “dou­ble stan­dard” in fail­ing to cre­ate a Hait­ian FRPP; and a Los Ange­les Times edi­to­r­ial asked,“Why the dis­parate treatment?”

In July 2010, the Boston Globe edi­to­r­ial board called this the “most effec­tive way” to show U.S. lead­er­ship to help Haiti recover, and the edi­to­r­ial boards of the Chicago Tri­bune, Philadel­phia Inquirer, San Anto­nio Express News, Wash­ing­ton Post, News­day, Star Ledger and Palm Bach Post have also sup­ported this.

No one would get a “green card” any sooner; but like the approved Cubans, they’d be able to wait for them here rather than in Haiti.  And as a Cen­ter for Global Devel­op­ment paper said last year, the Cuban program’s ratio­nale of sav­ing lives at sea and pro­vid­ing for orderly migra­tion applies with equal force to Haiti, as a recent sea tragedy underscored.

But the administration’s silence on this issue has been as deaf­en­ing as the polit­i­cal and edi­to­r­ial sup­port has been broad, and as unfor­tu­nate as the mer­its are strong.

The May 24’s North Miami City Hall press con­fer­ence of Hait­ian Amer­i­can lead­ers and sim­i­lar and increas­ing expres­sions of com­mu­nity dis­ap­point­ment with the White House over this may have polit­i­cal con­se­quences, if atten­tion isn’t paid.

For exam­ple, the press con­fer­ence was broad­cast for three con­sec­u­tive days on Island TV, a lead­ing Hait­ian com­mu­nity tele­vi­sion sta­tion, and there have been expres­sions of frus­tra­tion on local Cre­ole radio.  The lead­ers’ dis­ap­point­ment was reported in Miami Times and Sun-Sentinel news arti­cles and on WLRN/Miami Her­ald radio.  And the Hait­ian Amer­i­can Pro­fes­sion­als Coali­tion wrote the Pres­i­dent express­ing “frus­tra­tion and disappointment.”

There’s an irony here.  The assumed rea­son for admin­is­tra­tion inac­tion is feared polit­i­cal con­se­quences, not any ques­tion about the merits.

But there would seem to be lit­tle polit­i­cal risk in instruct­ing DHS to at least begin qui­etly parol­ing someof the most vul­ner­a­ble or deserv­ing of the approved Haitians.  For exam­ple, it could begin with some of the 15,800 minor chil­dren and spouses of legal per­ma­nent res­i­dents whose wait time in Haiti, with­out such action, remains years.

And what might be the actual polit­i­cal con­se­quences in Novem­ber if the South Florida Hait­ian Amer­i­can community’s sense of being taken for granted by the admin­is­tra­tion, due to its inac­tion on this issue, is not assuaged with appro­pri­ate and mer­ited action?

Hait­ian Amer­i­cans too have a dream, Mr. President.