Give the Northland’s congressional leadership some credit. While the rest of us were giving at church, mailing checks or even texting money to help Haiti and the victims and survivors of last week’s earthquake, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, all of Minnesota, were finding more tangible and more direct ways to assist.
Franken joined 22 of his colleagues Thursday in a letter urging Senate leadership to support “robust emergency funds.”
“The thoughts and prayers of Minnesotans are with the Haitian people,” Franken said in a statement. “It is nearly impossible to comprehend the scope of this disaster.”
Klobuchar ripped off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, asking them to allow Haitian children in the process of being adopted by American families to come early to the U.S.
“The most helpless of Haiti’s people — its children — are among those most in need of our help,” Klobuchar, whose office is working with several families, said in the letter. “Hundreds of American families began the process of adopting Haitian children long before the earthquake and now are deeply concerned about both the well-being of their prospective children as well as the path forward for bringing them to the United States.”
Oberstar sent a letter of his own to the president, asking that Temporary Protected Status be extended to Haitians in the U.S. The status would allow Haitian students, researchers, tourists and others to remain here until it is safe to return home.
“Conditions there are so bad they couldn’t return to Haiti if they wanted to,” Oberstar said in a statement. “We can certainly extend them [this] courtesy.”
