Haitian Asylum Seekers Are Suing Biden Over Disparate Treatment of Black Migrants

During Donald Trump's presidency, the US government enacted Title 42, a public health authority that allows Border Patrol and ICE to immediately expel or deport migrants over supposed public health concerns. The law has been criticized for allowing racist and abusive treatment of Haitian asylum seekers at the border, highlighting the disparate treatment Black migrants have long faced.

A study by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic reports that Black migrants face a higher rate of deportation than any other race.

Under Title 42, thousands of Haitian asylum seekers who were fleeing chaos, violence, and natural disaster have been expelled at the border and forced to remain in Mexico or deported to Haiti through repatriation flights. 

In September 2021, the issue came to a head when images and videos of Border Patrol's mistreatment of Haitian migrants surfaced, and the Biden administration vowed to hold those agents accountable. However, after the Trump administration used the Covid-19 pandemic as a justification to immediately turn away and expel Haitian asylum seekers under Title 42, the Biden administration continues to enforce it.

According to the International Organization for Migration statistics, 17,313 Haitians were returned to Haiti by the United States and four other nations between September 19 and January 8, 2022.  Of those repatriated by the United States during that period, the U.S. Coast Guard returned 406 Haitians interdicted at sea, and ICE returned, on 128 separate flights, 13,690 Haitians. (These IOM statistics do not include the 25 additional expulsion flights from the United States to Haiti since January 10.) 

Today nearly 20,000 Haitian immigrants have been expelled or deported back to Haiti. 

A Border Patrol agent chasing Haitian migrant Mirard Joseph in Del Rio, Texas, in September.
(Paul Ratje/Agence France-Presse /Getty Images)

11 Haitian migrants, represented by groups like the Haitian Bridge Alliance, are suing the Biden administration over the racist and abusive treatment they faced at the border in hopes of receiving justice and halting the cruel enforcement of Title 42. 

Guerline Jozef, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance and recipient of the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award joined us after returning from the U.S.-Mexico border to discuss the situation Haitian asylum seekers are facing and the disparate treatment of Black migrants.