Comments on: Because TPS just ain’t enough

By: Doug Hess

Doug Hess — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:52:03 +0000

I have often thought, after observing how many nurses, PT and homecare workers come from the Philippines and other developing nations, that one tool for helping Haiti would be to open two- and four-year schools there for nursing and related degrees. The US is in short supply in many health professionals areas and will remain so for some time to come. The remittances will be good and those that come here that can go further in their education will do so, aiding us and them even more. Granted it’s not a fast track, but even if several thousand people follow this path it would likely help more people in Haiti then building more textile factories. (Plus some would stay in country with this education, see the “Arming the donkeys” podcast about how brain drains create benefits in country, providing additional benefits).

By: K.L. Maxwell

K.L. Maxwell — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:23:43 +0000

@Michael Clemens, I absolutely agree and I am not proposing such a backwards solution – I would advocate freer movement of all labor, skilled and unskilled. However, I was simply pointing out the reality of our policy is that we seek to keep unskilled labor in country (driving down the return to unskilled labor) while allowing those people who do have skills to exit. The solution is certainly not to coerce them into staying but it does make one ask the question, how is a country meant to function in terms of government, industry, etc. when almost all of its more capable population is fleeing?

By: oasis

oasis — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:32:28 +0000

not reading carefully.

By: Ranil Dissanayake

Ranil Dissanayake — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:15:24 +0000

I really like both the proposal and the tone of this piece. Migration is primarily, for me at least, a moral issue. Not really a developmental one. I don’t think it makes much sense to conceive development on a level below the state, (I go into the reasons here: http://aidthoughts.org/?p=905 ).

By: Michael Clemens

Michael Clemens — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:59:22 +0000

@K.L. Maxwell — If allowing skilled people to leave Haiti “actively hurts development” in Haiti, then forcibly stopping skilled people from leaving Haiti would help development in Haiti. Those are logically equivalent statements. I think that trapping educated people somewhere against their will is an ineffective and profoundly unethical way to carry out “development”.

By: Michael Clemens

Michael Clemens — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:57:11 +0000

@oasis: First, the ‘golden door’ visa doesn’t need to mean “hundreds of thousands” more people. It could be done in a numbers-neutral way, such that the same number of people came, but there were a greater focus — even a small weight — on countries where there is little economic opportunity. Nothing like that exists in US immigration law. Second, even if it did mean more people, why is that bad? My ancestors from German were low-income, unskilled, non-English-speaking people who tended cows. They also built America, as today’s low-skill immigrants are (literally) doing.

By: K.L. Maxwell

K.L. Maxwell — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:15:47 +0000

Interestingly enough, we don’t seem to have as much of a problem with highly educated Haitians…80% of their college educated class lives abroad many in the United States (Docquier and Marfouk, 2006) yet we have been active in deterring their undocumented migration and allow very few less educated Haitians to enter the country. I think its very clear in the Haitian case that our immigration policies are actively hurting development in terms of both lost potential higher return to labor and the “brain drain” scenario, which while debatable in many cases, seems to be true of the Caribbean region.

By: oasis

oasis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:54:56 +0000

It seems like the US already pushes away tens of thousands of highly educated, highly skilled professionals every year through the work authorization quotas… how likely is it to accept hundreds of thousands more of unskilled, non-english speaking labor? ideally we would take both, but if you could only choose one, it’s not obvious that it should be the latter.

By: Michael Clemens

Michael Clemens — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:31:40 +0000

@Bryan: It’s true that the Diversity Visa allows a very small number of people from poor countries to come to the US, but this is by coincidence — the allocation is based only on how many people from that country are already in the US, not based on poverty in the country of origin. Thus Haiti for example, does not qualify for the Diversity Visa.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:22:16 +0000

The closest thing I’ve heard of to this ‘golden visa’ is the Diversity Visa. Heard about it in Liberia because one day the NEPI accountant was all of a sudden in America sporting his new passport sticker.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1322.html

Just scrolled the list and noticed that Haiti doesn’t make the list of candidates.. along with.. yes, its true Prof. Blattman, .. our very own Canada.