A debate is brewing over whether the U.S. government should let more Haitians come to the United States in the wake of the ruinous earthquake in Haiti. Immigration advocates and several members of Congress are pushing for the departments of Homeland Security and State to relax the rules on Haitians coming to the United States, in part to ease relief efforts after the Jan. 12 earthquake, The Washington Post reported Monday. Focus so far is on Haitians with relatives legally in the United States and injured children who relief doctors said could die without complicated medical treatment unavailable in Haiti, officials said. Shortly after the quake, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government would allow Haitian children already on the verge of adoption to enter and would allow Haitians in the United States illegally to stay for 18 months. Advocates are pushing for Haitians who, before the earthquake, applied for a visa available to foreign relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents. Homeland Security said 19,000 Haitians have pending applications for the visa. The State Department said nearly 55,000 Haitians have been approved for family visas but are wait-listed because of annual quotas, the Post reported. Even if visas were approved more quickly, the number of Haitians permitted to enter the country wouldn't change unless Congress alters the quotas, officials from the two departments said. Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser in President George W. Bush's administration now at the Council on Foreign Relations, said if, for the next five years, the United States doubled the 25,000 Haitians who come to the United States, money sent to the country would increase, providing critical help to the nation's rebuilding effort. Abrams suggested the United States could offset the influx of Haitians by temporarily slowing immigration from elsewhere.