International Food Crisis and Haiti

INTERNATIONAL FOOD CRISIS AND HAITI -- (House of Representatives - May 20, 2008)

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Let me start by saying that the constituents that you have, Congresswoman Clarke, can be exceedingly proud of you because you've been here a short time, but you've made a very significant difference. And I trust that they will understand the totality of the impact that you're making on the lives of people in this country, people who need help.

I was honored to go to Haiti with you and with my colleagues, and I will tell you that I was thunderstruck by what I saw. Probably the thing that stands out most in my mind is the notion that in the United States we have four seasons. In Haiti, there are five. There is a hunger season in Haiti, a time when it is prognosticated, it is predicted that people will go hungry, and they will need help that they probably will not receive.

Haiti is a country in crisis and needs help immediately, if not sooner. Haiti has an unemployment rate of 70 percent. Eighty percent of the people live in poverty. Seventy-six percent of the people live off of $2 per day; 55 percent off of $1 per day. The highest HIV/AIDS rate in the western hemisphere; infant mortality rate 10 times higher than that of the United States of America: Haiti is a country in crisis. When you go there and you see the density of population, people living in structures that in this country we would not house our animals in. Haiti needs help.

I'm not sure what the ultimate solution is, but I do know that if we do not act immediately, there will be a crisis right off of the coast of Florida comparable to what we have in Darfur.

And we talk consistently and continually about the things that are happening in Africa, and there are things there that necessitate our attention. We must do more to help in Darfur. But we have, right off the coast of Florida, some few hundred miles, a country that can benefit from much of what we have to offer.

It has been said that if you have the ability to do something and you cannot do enough, you have a duty to do all that you can do. The United States of America has a duty to do more in Haiti. I know that we have needs in this country, and we have to meet our needs. But we are the richest country in the world. And Haiti is a country that is our neighbor. It is an island. And people are trapped, they cannot leave. If they do leave and try to come here, we will return them.

There must be a way for us to have an infusion of capital, an infusion of help such that the people who are trapped on this island can extricate themselves from this most saddening circumstance.

There will be some who will say they should pull themselves up by their boot straps. They don't have any. There will be some who will say rising tides will lift all boats, and if we can find a way to do better here, they will do better there. This is not true. They don't have any boats to be a part of the rising tide. TPS is a part of the solution because if we allow those who are here to stay and to prosper, they will send money back to their relatives at home.

We have not been able to pass TPS. I would invite any Member of the House to go to Haiti and come back and say you won't vote for TPS. I challenge any Member of the House to go there. I don't believe you will come back and say you won't vote for TPS.

So probably one of the great things that any of us can do, if we want to adjust our hearts and become a part of the solution, is just go to Haiti and see the circumstances under which human beings are not living, but existing. It is an existence that we can change.

So I challenge my colleagues and I beg my colleagues to please, if you can, go to Haiti and see for yourself. It will tug at your heart, it will cause you to understand that we have an obligation to our fellow human beings to help them out of this circumstance. That is my appeal.

I thank you for the time. And I thank Congresswoman Lee for all that she has done through the years on this question of Haiti. This is not something new to her. For me, it is new in that this was my first visit, I'm a neophyte. But she has been doing this year in and year out and she knows of what we speak and she understands the challenges that are before us.

So I thank you, Congresswoman Clarke, for the time. I thank you, Madam Speaker. And I beg that my colleagues will see for themselves the human crisis that exists right off the coast of Florida.

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