America Is Going to Need Those Immigrants From Haiti

On Thursday, President Donald Trump reportedly asked a roomful of legislators why they would allow immigrants from a "shithole country" like Haiti into the U.S.On Thursday, President Donald Trump reportedly asked a roomful of legislators why they would allow immigrants from a "shithole country" like Haiti into the U.S.He has denied the epithet but not the sentiment.So allow me to answer that question.First, America should accept immigrants from Haiti because Haiti first accepted immigrants from the U.S.My wife, Texas Woman's University history Professor Sara Fanning, wrote a book called Caribbean Crossing: African Americans and the Haitian Emigration Movement. In case Trump did not read the book during his no-doubt exhaustive research on the immigration question, I will break it down to something closer to tweet form.In the 1820s and again in the 1850s, thousands of free African Americans emigrated from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other American cities to Haiti. Following a slave revolt against France in the 19th century, Haiti had become the second republic in the Western hemisphere and one of only three -- including the U.S. and France -- on earth. Haiti was also one of the wealthiest nations in the Western hemisphere, having retained a big share of the global sugar trade.There were few opportunities for black people in major American cities in the early 19th century. They received a fraction of the wages earned by white peers and faced laws that denied them the right to vote. When then-Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer provided incentives for passage to Haiti, many leaders of the black community, including Philadelphia's Richard Allen, rejoiced at the prospect of deliverance for their people to a nation where they would be treated as equals.Boyer had his own reasons for attracting immigrants, of course. Among those reasons was a basic economic fact: In a nation shorthanded for labor (as the greying U.S. is today) immigrants, even unskilled immigrants, are a positive for economic growth. If you don't believe me, ask Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan, who is nobody's idea of a bleeding-heart liberal. "Immigrants and their children have made up over half the workforce growth in this country over the last 20 years. They're likely to need to make up more than half in the next 20," Kaplan said in August, according to CNBC.com. Second, the U.S. should accept Haitian immigrants because the U.S. was actively involved in the ruin of Haiti.  Continue reading...