As our country once again faces the horrific tragedy that occurred in Arizona this past weekend, I can't help but think of another tragedy that happened just one year ago on January 12, 2010. On this day, Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake that killed approximately 250,000 and left millions homeless.
Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, how did an earthquake that happened 1,000 miles from NYC have such a big impact on your life? Well, oddly enough, despite the fact that I'm a Mexican/German/Irish mutt from Minnesota, I actually had a connection to many Haitians well before the earthquake through my work as a non-profit immigration lawyer at an org that, oddly enough, was started to provide immigration services to Haitians who fled their country following the coup in the 1990's. So, needless to say, prior to Jan 2010, I had my fair share of Haitian clients.
And, like many of you, I watched the images from Port-au-Prince in horror and felt helpless as I saw the devastation from Haiti on my TV. But beyond the shock and horror we all felt as we saw the footage following the earthquake, my connection was a little more personal because of my clients. As I watched the news in the days following the earthquake, I couldn't help but think of all of my Haitian clients and their loved ones in Port-au-Prince. Every time I saw a child being pulled from the rubble, I couldn't help but think, "what if that is Client X's child?" When I heard that Carrefour, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, had experienced aftershocks several days after the initial earthquake, I immediately thought of a client's husband who lived in that area. It got to the point where I couldn't watch footage of the earthquake without bursting into tears. (Leading to a temporary ban of Anderson Cooper 360 by Flavio - who hates it when I cry for any reason; even shed tears during sad movies or while reading sad parts of a book)
Things at my office weren't much better. Before the week was over, we had been bombarded with frantic phone calls from Haitian clients asking us to contact the consulate on behalf of their family members in Port-au-Prince. One moment I will never forget happened on the Friday after the earthquake, when a client came to the office in tears begging me to do something to help his wife and one year old son who were sleeping in the street.
And, even thought I donated money to Doctors Without Borders and Partners in Health, solicited money on Facebook for earthquake relief, and even got into a Facebook fight with a girl from high school about the merits of donating money to Haiti, I still wished that I could do more. Thankfully, after President Obama authorized Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, I had my chance to make a difference.
For those of you who are not immigration lawyers, TPS, in a nutshell, is a special status granted by the president to immigrants in the U.S. who are citizens of a country deemed to be in crisis due to war, civil unrest or, in the case of Haiti, a natural disaster. After an immigrant is granted TPS, he or she is allowed to stay and work in the U.S. for a period of time designated by the president - typically 12 to 18 months. In the case of Haitians, so long as they could prove 1) they were a national of Haiti and 2) they had resided continuously in the U.S. on or before Jan 12, 2010, the date of the earthquake, they were eligible for TPS status.
Going back to my work for Haitians after the earthquake, after TPS status was designated for Haitians, my office partnered with the Haitian Family Support Center (created by a Haitian church in Flatbush, Brooklyn immediately following the earthquake) to hold weekly immigration clinics which provided immigration assistance to Haitians affected by the earthquake. The first few weeks at the church were complete chaos. The only way I can describe it is to say that it felt like the lawyer equivalent of being an ER doctor or a trauma surgeon. The meeting area of the church where my colleagues, Haitian community partners and I provided services was filled with dozens of people with a variety of immigration problems - some needed help with a TPS application, some needed help contacting the U.S. Embassy to schedule a consular interview (i.e. an interview to give them a visa to enter the U.S. as a permanent resident) for their spouse or child, others needed to file petitions for a family member still in Haiti. In order to serve everyone who came to the clinic we worked seven or eight hour shifts from 2:00 to 9:00 or 10:00 PM, often without time for even a bathroom break, much less dinner, followed by an hour-plus commute home. During the clinic we held about 2 or 3 weeks after the earthquake, I remember having a killer headache at about 9:30PM because I hadn't eaten all day, but having to power through it as I saw my last client of the night. (Not surprisingly the previously mentioned Facebook fight escalated later that night, at about 11:30PM, when I had just returned home from a long day of helping Haitians) And, while the work at the clinic was both physically and emotionally exhausting, it was probably one of the most rewarding experiences of my legal career.
In the months following the earthquake, we continued to have a steady flow of clients at the clinic and slowly but surely we started to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor. In late February, excited clients came to the church with their TPS approval notices. Later, in the spring and summer, clients started bringing in their kids who were able to enter the U.S. because of our help. Definitely gave me warm fuzzies to know the work my colleagues and I did made a difference.
The summer also saw the beginning of deferred action applications (a discretionary humanitarian status) for evacuees admitted for six months with a tourist visa in the days following the earthquake. (Special shout out to my colleague Cecilia and our summer interns who did all of the heavy lifting on the deferred action applications - they definitely deserve lots of credit for their work) Fingers crossed, most of our clients were able to get this special humanitarian status.
And, even though I left my job in August to move to MN, I still think a lot about the Haitian clients I helped at the clinic and wonder about the status of their cases. After this fall's cholera outbreak, I once again worried about my client's loved ones and hoped they would be able to come to the U.S. without incident.
Needless to say, Port-au-Prince has come a long way since that horrible day in January, but it still has a long way to go. And while there are many worthwhile charities in need, think about donating money to Haiti. Here's hoping the coming year is a much brighter one for a land that has known so much darkness and despair.
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