Their population is quite small relative to that of the U.S.: an influx of, say, one million Haitians over a couple of years would not deluge our economy or society. Furthermore, the long-term environmental degradation of Haiti is so severe that reducing its population (at least for a while) would probably be helpful to everyone who remained. Plus, to the extent that Haiti suffers from a lack of functional institutions, decent infrastructure, and basic human capital, there’s little reason to think that temporary relief aid will get them “back on their feet” within a few years.

As for the risk of setting a dangerous precedent (for consistency, will we need to throw open our borders to every Pakistani if there’s another terrible quake there?), there’s a good argument that this disaster was such a whole-scale national catastrophe that it’s qualitatively different from challenges (even severe disasters) that most other developing countries face.

Needless to say, I support short-term disaster relief. But, insofar as aid organizations’ track records of building societies and economies from scratch is dismal, it seems as if a more radical medium-term approach might be in order.