Trump Administration Cuts-Off Legal, Temporary Workers from Haiti

John Locke, a leading political philosopher whose thoughts helped frame the U.S. Constitution, offered this sage insight: “I have always thought the actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

On January 18^th— two days ago— the Trump administration posted a legal notice that is plans to prohibit people from Haiti — which the president allegedly insulted in a meeting last week — from applying for temporary visas for seasonal and farm workers.

Click here, please (it’s worth a quick read): https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/18/2018-00812/identification-of-foreign-countries-whose-nationals-are-eligible-to-participate-in-the-h-2a-and-h-2b. 

The notice also announces plans to prohibit people from Belize and Samoa from applying for H-2A and H-2B visas, which are temporary.

This is in addition to ending Temporary Protected Status of Haitians who came to the U.S. after devastating earthquakes.

These visas allow businesses to bring in workers from other countries. The H-2A visa is for agriculture and the H-2B is for non-agricultural seasonal work in places such as hotels and nursing homes.

Haitians (and others) on these visas do menial, backbreaking, and difficult work... also, have developed a reputation for kindness in caring for people in hospice. 

I’ll give you examples you might not have considered: raking and baling pine needles in southern forests (to be sold as landscape ground-cover); picking potatoes by hand and packing in bushel baskets in Alabama (a bushel of potatoes is much heavier than a similar container of tomatoes); and cutting sugar cane in Florida.

Racism is a harsh word—but it aptly applies to a president and administration who refer to Haitians as natives of an AIDS-infested, shithole (or shithouse) nation. Put another way, what American workers are being deprived employment by these temporary visas?