We as a nation should be humbled that the Haitian people, a people who rose above slavery, a people of great resilience and survival, wish to become part of our community. They want only the basics: education, food and shelter. In return they offer their cultural riches – their resilience, their art, their music, their beloved food and their beautiful laughter. The United States government should grant humanitarian parole to the Haitians in need ....
-- My colleague Holly Cooper (above left), Lecturer in the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall), in an op-ed in London's Guardian, entitled "How the US can help Haiti: Thousands of Haitians lost everything in the earthquake. The US should open its borders and start granting humanitarian parole." Holly's essay deftly invokes the Greek myth of Persephone in recounting her experiences earlier this month in Haiti, where she was part of "a human rights delegation intent on finding individuals for whom we could request humanitarian parole into the US."
