19980: Antoine Re: 19939: Nealy Re: 19908: US to pay Haitian Coast Guard to curb refugees (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Guy S. Antoine <webmaster@haitiforever.com>

Hi David, you say: "Come on Guy, When did hundreds or thousands
of Europeans leave their shores in thoroughly overloaded, flimsy
sailboats to try to emigrate to the US?"

Well, I did NOT assert the notion that is embedded in your question.
If those flimsy boats capsize on their way to Florida and some time
in plain view of people on the Florida coast, I would not expect that
they would make their way to the U.S. from Italy, Ireland, Spain, etc.

I simply inquired as to when the U.S. ever, at any point in its history,
stopped the flow of refugees from Western Europe.  You would not
deny that such migratory patterns took place, would you?  A couple
of people wrote to me off-list to tell me of the extraordinary hostility
suffered by the Irish and the Italian immigrant communities, during
their period of influx to America.   Well, that's good information,
that's great information, because we can reflect on this historical
record to examine the current sorry record of American policy
towards Haitian immigrants, even those who actually manage
to make it to shore.

What did in fact the United States do to prevent the Irish and the
Italians from coming to America, at a time when they were most
prejudiced against in American society?  I wonder whether they
paid the Irish and Italian governments to stop their people from
coming to America.  As simple as that.  What else have they done
to discourage Western European immigration throughout U.S.
History?  It's a valid question, isn't it not?

(Bob will tell me of course that such answers do not belong to
the list for not being specifically centered on Haiti... sorry, Bob!)

As I said to one of my correspondents "The Haitians have not been
the only group targeted for discrimination, but one must ask pertinent
questions before others are shaken from their comfortable assumptions,
such as this one so often advanced by recent U.S. administrations:
"The Haitians are not admissible in the States, because they are economic
refugees, not political ones," hence drawing a line in the sand that
some people assume was always there for some reason.

I am not advocating for the U.S. to have open borders (though this
would be nice if it were implemented worldwide).  I am not even
advocating that they should let Haitians risk their lives in great
numbers on flimsy boats, coming to America.  But it seems
somewhat unpalatable to me that the U.S. should sponsor a coup,
in which great violence to human rights would inevitably occur
due to their direct sponsorship of the coup, and then pay the
Haitian State to contain possible victims within the confines of
their coup.  It's like throwing live lobsters and crabs in boiling
water and beating back those who would manage to scramble and
leave the pot.  I have seen it happen.  Fine for lobster and crab
lovers.  But fine for Americans?

Sorry, I had to ask.

Also, do you remember what happened to that boat of persecuted
Jewish people coming to America (during World War II, I believe)?
What was the ultimate outcome of that episode?

>From what I vaguely rememeber about the story, it was tragic.
Was any historical lesson drawn from that?  Would most people
even care about that boat of Jewish refugees?  Would most people
even care about the crabs and lobsters scrambling out of the Haiti
pot?

I would just like to know.

Guy S. Antoine
Windows on Haiti
http://haitiforever.com