The devastation caused by the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti focused world attention on the humanitarian crisis and prompted U.S. leaders to reconsider policies on Haitian migration. Most recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has stated: "An epidemic cholera strain has been confirmed in Haiti, causing the first cholera outbreak in Haiti in at least 100 years." Some members of Congress have long criticized the interdiction and mandatory detention of Haitians who attempted to enter the United States without proper immigration documents as too harsh given country conditions. Proponents of immigration control policies have held sway for many years in large part because they argue that more lenient treatment of Haitians would serve as a magnet for illegal migration from the poorest nation in this hemisphere. Whether the balance should tip more toward humanitarian policies as a consequence of the humanitarian crises that resulted from last year's earthquake in Haiti is an issue before the 112 th Congress. The phenomenon of Haitians coming to the United States by boat without proper travel documents dates back at least to the 1970s. An estimated 25,000 Haitians were among the mass migration of over 150,000 asylum seekers who arrived in South Florida in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift. The U.S. Coast Guard, as described below, has been interdicting vessels carrying Haitians since 1981. Figure 1 presents the U.S. Coast Guard data on Haitian migrants that the Coast Guard has encountered on boats and rafts in the years following the Mariel boatlift. Most notably, there was a drop of migrants after the Haitian elections in 1990 followed by a dramatic upturn after the 1991 coup (discussed in " Crisis After the Coup " below). As country conditions in Haiti and U.S. policy responses to the surges in Haitian boat people are considered, the spikes and valleys in Figure 1 become more understandable. Since FY1998, the Coast Guard had interdicted over 1,000 Haitians each year, with 1,198 in FY2006 and 1,610 in FY2007. Haitian interdictions were second only to Cuban interdictions (2,868) in FY2007. In FY2009, interdictions of 1,782 Haitians led all other countries. The Coast Guard interdicted 1,377 Haitians in FY2010 and 677 in FY2011 as of May 12, 2011. Not all Haitian migrants are interdicted by the Coast Guard, as witnessed in the widely televised landing of over 200 Haitians in Biscayne Bay, FL, in October 2002. Another noteworthy incident occurred in December 2001 when a boat bringing 167 Haitians ran aground in South Florida. In March 2007, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 100 Haitians who came ashore near Miami. During 2007, there were also reports of deaths at sea when boats with Haitians capsized or—in one report—caught fire. In the 2000 Decennial census of the U.S. population, there were 532,000 persons reporting Haitian ancestry residing in the United States, 185,000 who were born in the United States and another 154,000 who were naturalized U.S. citizens. According to Congressional Research Service estimates based on the 2006-2008 American Community Survey (a 1% sample of the U.S. population conducted by the Bureau of the Census), there were approximately 757,000 persons reporting Haitian ancestry in the United States (margin of error is 15,233). Of these, an estimated 523,000 were born in Haiti and migrated to the United States. These data do not indicate the immigration status of the Haitians, and a portion of these Haitians may have become naturalized U.S. citizens. During the period from 2001 to 2010, there were 213,752 Haitians who became legal permanent residents (LPRs) in the United States, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). OIS estimates that approximately 230,000 Haitians were LPRs as of 2008. Many of these Haitians adjusted to LPR status as a result of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998, which is discussed more fully below. There are currently no reliable estimates of Haitians residing in the United States without authorization (i.e., unauthorized aliens). The OIS estimates on unauthorized alien residents in 2009 do not include Haiti among the top 10 sending countries. DHS has indicated that 35,110 Haitians have submitted petitions for Temporary Protected Status, as discussed below. The Carter Administration labeled Haitians as well as Cubans who had come to the United States during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift as "Cuban-Haitian Entrants" and used the discretionary authority of the Attorney General (e.g., humanitarian parole) to admit them. It appeared that the vast majority of Haitians who arrived in South Florida did not qualify for asylum according to the newly enacted individualized definition of persecution in §207-208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA, as amended by the Refugee Act of 1980). Subsequently, an adjustment of status provision was included in the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 that enabled Cuban-Haitian Entrants to become LPRs. In 1981, the Reagan Administration reacted to the mass migration of asylum seekers who arrived in boats from Haiti by establishing a program to interdict (i.e., stop and search certain vessels suspected of transporting undocumented Haitians). This agreement, made with then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, authorized the U.S. Coast Guard to board and inspect private Haitian vessels on the high seas and to interrogate the passengers. At that time, the United States generally viewed Haitian boat people as economic migrants deserting one of the poorest countries in the world. Under the original agreement, an inspector from the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and a Coast Guard official, working together, would check the immigration status of the passengers and return those passengers deemed to be undocumented Haitians. An alien in question must have volunteered information to the Coast Guard or INS inspector that she or he would be persecuted if returned to Haiti in order for the interdicted Haitian to be considered for asylum. Ultimately, INS would determine the immigration status of the alien in question. From 1981 through 1990, 22,940 Haitians were interdicted at sea. Of this number, INS considered 11 Haitians qualified to apply for asylum in the United States. The 1991 military coup d ' etat deposing Haiti's first democratically elected President, Jean Bertrand Aristide, however, challenged the assumption that all Haitian boat people were economic migrants. The DOS reportedly hesitated on whether the Haitians should be forced to return given the strong condemnation of the coup by the United States and the Organization of American States. By November 11, 1991, approximately 450 Haitians were being held on Coast Guard cutters while the Administration of then-President George H. W. Bush considered the options. The former Bush Administration lobbied for a regional solution to the outflow of Haitian boat people, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) arranged for several countries in the region—Belize, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela—to temporarily provide a safe haven for Haitians interdicted by the Coast Guard. Some of the other countries in the region were each willing to provide safe haven for only several hundred Haitians. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard cutters were becoming severely overcrowded, and on November 18, 1991, the United States forcibly returned 538 Haitians to Haiti. The options for safe havens in third countries in the region proved inadequate for the sheer numbers of Haitians fleeing their country, and the George H. W. Bush Administration began treating the Haitians fleeing by boat as asylum seekers. The Coast Guard took them to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where they were pre-screened for asylum in the United States. During this period, there were approximately 10,490 Haitians who were paroled into the United States after a pre-screening interview at Guantanamo determined that they had a credible fear of persecution if returned to Haiti. On May 24, 1992, citing the surge of Haitians that month, then-President Bush ordered the Coast Guard to intercept all Haitians in boats and immediately return them without interviews to determine whether they were at risk of persecution. The Administration offered those repatriated the option of in-country refugee processing. The repatriation policy continued for two years, until then-President Bill Clinton announced that interdicted Haitians would be taken to a location in the region where they would be processed as potential refugees. The refugee processing policy lasted only a few weeks—June 15 to July 5, 1994. Much like the George H. W. Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration cited the exodus of Haitian boat people as a reason for suspending refugee processing. Instead, the new policy became one of regional "safe havens" where interdicted Haitians who expressed a fear of persecution could stay, but they would not be allowed to come to the United States. In 1993, in-country refugee processing was further expanded to Les Cayes and Cape Haiten. In December 1997, President Clinton instructed the Attorney General to grant deferred enforced departure (DED) to Haitians for one year. Currently interdicted Haitians who expressed a fear of persecution are taken for a credible fear hearing at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. If deemed a refugee, they are resettled in the third country. In 2005, only nine of the 1,850 interdicted Haitians received a credible fear hearing and, of those, one man was granted refugee status.