Haitian emigrants look North, South

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that Haiti would be added to the list of 53 countries whose citizens can apply for temporary work visas. Under the H-2A and H-2B temporary visa programs, immigrants are allowed to work in seasonal positions for up to 12 months, with the possibility of extending stays for up to three years.

The temporary visa programs are fraught with red tape and inflexible restrictions, but allowing more Haitians to work in the United States undeniably brings benefits, not only for emigrants but also for, say, farmers in southern states who have had trouble finding laborers after crackdowns on illegal immigration.

But in the two years since the January 12 earthquake, Haitians emigrants haven’t been looking only North.

The Global Post reports:

“After the earthquake in January 2010 a flow of Haitians began arriving in Brazil. We’d never had Haiti/Brazil migration before,” said Paulo Sergio de Almeida, the president of Brazil’s national immigration council. “It was the first time.”

The migration was little reported by even the Brazilian media until late 2011. Haitians would enter Brazil in the remote western part of the country—usually after flying to Panama and busing across some combination of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Because they entered either through boondock border towns or by paying coyotes—smugglers—to sneak then through the jungle, little more than local media and bloggers covered the migration.

But when a few hundred Haitians crossed the border in a matter of days late last year, Brazilian media rushed to cover the story (The New York Times followed suit a few weeks later) and government officials in Brasilia took notice.

Around 4,000 Haitians have made it to Brazil and will be allowed to stay and work, but the Brazilian government will now limit visas to about 100 per month, to be doled out in Port-au-Prince.

The Global Post posted a translated excerpt of an editorial by Brazilian news site Rondonia Ao Vivo:

“The Haitian people came, rolled up their sleeves and sought out work. Today we see them going around with their beautiful smiles, riding newly-bought bicycles, talking on mobile phones and rebuilding their lives through opportunities that our marvelous land has offered them.”