[HOUSE] Haitian Refugee Bill

[Smyg]

Having presented a bill on the issue of Haiti itself, we need to resolve the immediate concerns of the Haitian refugees brimming in our country. The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare have obviously collapsed to put it lightly, and Congress needs to take action.

Allow me to, again, quote recent news reports:

Spoiler

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*Mountain States Coast Guard cutters report that they are intercepting thousands of Haitian refugees on makeshift rafts, fleeing the violence and disaster-stricken areas. Various clashes have been reported between these refugees and the United States Coast Guard, who reports indicate are shepherding the rafts (by means of bow waves and machine gun fire) towards Mountain American waters. So far the Coast Guard has rounded them up and contained them in refugee camps just in-land on the Louisiana coast with the Louisiana National Guard surrounding the camps.

*The media focuses heavily on the atrocities in Haiti, as well as the suffering in refugee camps and the international focus of the Socialist Party. Much of their discussion is also directed in opposition to the Republican Party, who they denounce as callous.

*Secretary of the Interior, Brendan Moskin, and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Mathias Oliver, hold a joint press conference, where they announce plans underway to assist the Haitian refugee camps in Louisiana. Coordinating with the CDC, they provide vaccination assistance, particularly to small children, and dietary aid - sending food, blankets, medicine, clean water, and so on. With the National Guard keeping order, all looks to be well, save for the continuing flow of refugees into the camps. Present estimates put the number of refugees at having just topped 10,000, with possibly as many as 15,000 present.
*President Roux-Johnson visits some of the refugee camps, escorted by National Guardsmen, witnessing first hand the conditions there, making use of his French skills (being a Louisiana native) to converse briefly with those taking shelter. He gives a speech at the camp, announcing aid to Haiti (while lamenting Congress’s failure to approve aid), condemning the Tonton Macoutes, and announcing the deployment of the National Guard and the Coast Guard to protect refugees and ensure makeshift rafts are safe from US harassment.
*Refugee advocacy groups present in the Louisiana camps are invited back to Wallace House with the President, where they conduct highly publicised meetings about their plans both domestically and abroad.

*Conditions in the Haitian refugee camps remain generally poor, with an unusually high number of orphans, and disease continuing to spread due to cramped conditions, despite the intervention of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The Interior Department continues to fight to combat the issues, as well as containing the refugees from spreading out as best they can. They release their own audit for the population of the camps, being at some 15,592 by their count, though likely higher as some may have avoided being counted, and others may have evaded the camps altogether.

An immediate, short-term solution is needed. I therefore propose the following:

• Seeing the drastic humanitarian situation for many of the Haitian refugees in Louisiana, provides one credit's worth of medical aid - in the form of direct treatment, dietary supplements, vaccinations, health checks to monitor disease spread, etc. - to the refugees. Special care will be provided to children.
• Petitioning the Commander-in-Chief to order that control of the refugee camps be transferred from the Louisiana National Guard to the Mountain States Army, to allow the National Guard to focus on relieving currently arriving refugees as previously ordered and the Army to relocate the refugees.
  
  • Transferring, at the cost of one credit, after a detailed identity check to ensure no record of criminal activity can be located and that all families remain intact, all refugees currently in the Louisiana facilities to various non-classified military bases around the country, where new, safer and healthier facilities for them will be erected, [OOC: As was done during the Cuban boatlift]
  • Noting the wide spread of refugees throughout the region, the possibility of reuniting displaced families, and the close political connection between several Latin American states, deciding to provide the safe transport of any Haitian citizens that wish to leave the MSA to any of the following states: Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Workers' Republic. If any Haitians wish to return to their country of origin (or any other state), this may be done if extraordinary circumstances motivating this are extant. This offer will be provided to refugees both inside and outside of the camps. These transfers will be financed through the funding allocated for domestic transfer - if insufficient, another credit will be allocated for this purpose.
• Distributing individual identification papers, which will function as emergency travel documents, to all Haitian refugees who are leaving the Mountain States, to facilitate their safe departure and arrival abroad.

[Smyg]

*Health crises continue in the Haitian refugee camps in Louisiana. Even as bills are being introduced in Congress to provide assistance in these areas, and to Haiti itself, monitors in the camps report more than 16,000 people currently residing in them, with hundreds having died of disease since arriving. Cases of malnutrition, diarrhoea, typhoid, hepatitis A and E, dengue fever, malaria, meningitis, and so on, are all reported, including odd numbers of diseases like pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and many succumbing to even common sicknesses such as the flu. Concerns about local health issues surface as scattered cases of malaria are reported in Louisianan hospitals not far from the camps.

Time is of the essence, people. Please, save the Haitians.

[Coin]

My fellow representative from Texas is to be applauded for moving this before the House. While the Roux-Johnson administration chose to make political capital out of the tragic situation of these people, they neglected the very real crisis on our own shores.

I look forward to debating and voting on this bill; I welcome in particular the recognition by Representative Miller of the need to ease the reunion of families.

[Flamelord]

I hereby present this bill to the floor of the House for debate and voting.

[Coin]

I welcome this move and comments by my fellow Texan representatives. The left enjoy painting the Republican Party as a villain; but it is not the Republican Party who have ignored the plight of these refugees. As a former refugee myself, I know well the dangers and fear they must suffer - and as a refugee who has been voted into Congress, I can tell them that the Mountain States of America, as the land of the free, will always stand on the side of righteousness and justice.

We cannot ignore a humanitarian plight on own shores. Therefore I and my fellow conservative caucus members shall be voting in favour.

12 Republican Conservative votes in favour.

[Flamelord]

Indeed, the plight of the Haitian Refugees is one we cannot ignore, especially when one considers the state that they have been forced to live with. While the Federal government has done what it can, and it has done a significant job thus far in accommodating those poor souls who have washed up on our shores, we cannot simply keep dumping them in Louisiana and hoping the problem will go away. That is not a viable solution, and it is not, in fact, a solution at all.

As such, we welcome this call to action by Representative Miller, and support it

10 Progressive Moderate votes IN FAVOR

[Smyg]

4 Republican Liberal votes in favor.