As the United States government is deporting thousands of Haitian refugees from the Texas border, It's time to remember the great debt that America owes to the people of Haiti.  It's time to remember that it was the Haitian Revolution that ultimately forced France to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, thus tripling the size of the nation.  And many of Haiti's current problems can arguably be attributed to the U.S invasion and occupation that lasted from 1915 to 1934, wherein US forces executed dissidents and implemented a system of forced labor, still used to this day, that destroyed the self-determination of Haiti's peasant population. 

It is also time to remember that one of America's greatest cities, the city of New Orleans owes some of its unique cultural heritage to an influx of roughly 10,000 Saint-Domingue Refugees who fled the Haitian Revolution and doubled the French creole speaking population of the city in 1809, bringing with them their skills in the professional trades, sugar production, and of course their cultural traditions.  As we are here recovering from Hurricane Ida, and being hammered by wave after wave of gentrification that threatens to erase our unique Afro-creole heritage, it's a perfect time for another great influx of people from one of our root cultures to reinvigorate that which makes us unique among American cities. These human beings are assets to our country, not burdens. Let's at the least give them the same right to asylum as the 100,000 Afghan refugees the U.S. government recently airlifted and is currently resettling.