Reihan wants to let the Haitians emigrate:
There are literally dozens of countries across the world that are what Pritchett, in his provocative book Let Their People Come, calls “zombies.” In the Old West, cities abandoned when the local gold mine dried up were called “ghost towns.” Zombies are essentially ghost towns that you can never leave. The economic opportunities are all gone, but barriers to migration are just high enough that people are forced to stay put, almost as though they were walled in a penitentiary. Though we all want to believe that Haiti and countries like it can eventually become as rich as successful as the U.S. or South Korea or Botswana, the sad fact is that some countries have been handed a raw deal by virtue of climate, resources, and the scarring effects of a cruel colonial history. It is possible that Haiti can’t be saved. But that doesn’t mean that Haitians can’t save themselves, provided we start breaking down the walls that have kept them hemmed in.
The Dish 