Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) stated that she believed the Department of Homeland Security’s recently announced program to allow thousands of Haitians into the US was “a great step forward” that she hoped would provide an example for policies to handle the parents of children who fell under the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Tuesday’s “Jose Diaz-Balart” on MSNBC.
Ros-Lehtinen expressed that she hoped the Haiti program would be a step to taking similar action for parents of children who fell under DACA. She stated that when it comes to immigration there would be, “the dilemma of executive action versus congressional legislation, and that’s going to bring up a lot of different dynamics going on in D.C.,” but that she supported “anything that unifies families in a safe, legal, and orderly way.”
“I think this a great step forward” she said of the program to bring Haitians into the US, “because we have seen that united families, unified families is positive for the United States, for communities. These Haitians have been approved. They’ve been properly vetted. You know what a great contribution they’ve made to the South Florida community.” Adding that the new arrivals from Haiti had a “safety net” of family members in the United States.
Ros-Lehtinen added that the program was beneficial because “that is the leading economic driver for Haiti, remittances from Haitian-Americans back to their family members in Haiti. It’s billions of dollars every year. Haiti needs that.” And “it’s good for Haiti to recover from this earthquake. I’ve been there many times, and it looks like the earthquake was only yesterday. So, they need the help. They’re our partner. They’re our hemispheric partner. We need to help them. This is a step forward.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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