Thousands of Haitians have been displaced amid escalating gang violence in the aftermath of Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination on July 7. Many of them are expected to seek refuge in the US, but while the Biden administration has taken steps to welcome some, it has threatened others with the prospect of repatriation and shut the door on those arriving via the southern border.<\/p>\n
In addition to pledging millions of dollars in aid to Haiti, the Biden administration will soon allow more than 100,000 Haitians who arrived in the US before May 21, 2021, to apply for Temporary Protected Status, which is typically offered to citizens of countries suffering from natural disasters or armed conflict. It will allow those people to live and work in the US for at least 18 months after the government publishes a notice in the Federal Register, which the White House said is expected \u201cwithin the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that won\u2019t help anyone who has decided to leave Haiti in light of the recent constitutional crisis and power struggle that has unfolded since Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination, nor will it aid the thousands of Haitians who have long been stranded in Mexico due to the US\u2019s pandemic-related border restrictions.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the Biden administration has discouraged Haitians, as well as Cubans fleeing their communist regime\u2019s recent crackdown on anti-government protesters, from trying to reach the US by boat. Those who try will put their lives at risk, be intercepted by the US Coast Guard, and will not be permitted to enter the US, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a July 13 press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time is never right to attempt migration by sea,\u201d he said. \u201cTo those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that those individuals will either be repatriated back to Haiti or, if they can demonstrate the need for humanitarian protection, resettled in another country. It\u2019s an echo of Bush- and Clinton-era policies in the early 1990s, when the federal government intercepted Haitian boats, detained HIV-positive Haitians indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay at what one federal judge referred to as a \u201cprison camp,\u201d and sought to repatriate them.<\/p>\n
Immigrant advocates see the Biden administration\u2019s response so far as an abandonment of its responsibilities to Haitians seeking humanitarian protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe message is, \u2018You are not welcome,\u2019\u201d said Denise Bell, a researcher for refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International. \u201cThis is a message that the US is not fully upholding its human rights obligations around refugee protection. \u2026 We\u2019re deeply concerned that the US continues offshoring its human rights responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are ways the Biden administration could open orderly, legal pathways for Haitians to come to the US and ensure they get the opportunity to make claims for protection. It can unilaterally lift pandemic-related restrictions at the US-Mexico border, guarantee that Haitians can come to the US legally via a parole program, and prevent them from being detained and deported back to dangerous conditions in their home country.<\/p>\n
End pandemic-related restrictions at the border<\/p>\n
The US continues to turn away the majority of migrants arriving at the southern border \u2014 including Haitians \u2014 under pandemic-related border restrictions, with exceptions for unaccompanied minors, some families from Central America with young children, and people who were sent back to Mexico to wait for their court hearings in the US.<\/p>\n
Last March, at the outset of the pandemic, then-President Donald Trump invoked Title 42, a section of the Public Health Service Act that allows the US government to temporarily block noncitizens from entering the US \u201cwhen doing so is required in the interest of public health.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policy has allowed US immigration officials at the southern border to rapidly expel more than 844,000 migrants since the outset of the pandemic. Though scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opposed the policy initially, arguing there was no legitimate public health rationale behind it, then-Vice President Mike Pence ordered the agency to follow through with it anyway.<\/p>\n
Biden has not overturned the policy, despite outcry from immigrant advocates and humanitarian groups who say it prevents migrants from exercising their right under US and international law to seek asylum.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who come [to] the US-Mexico border to ask for asylum are not doing so illegally,\u201d Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, an organization that provides services to Black migrants at the border, said on a recent press call. \u201cIt is their legal right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haitian Bridge Alliance estimates that 5,000 to 10,000 Haitians are still stuck in Mexico on account of Title 42, and most of them have been waiting between 18 months and five years for a chance to apply for asylum. They have reported facing discrimination in Mexican border towns, where they fear retribution from police or local armed groups.<\/p>\n
And though Central American families have crossed the border and been released into the US, many Haitian families have been sent back to their home country. Immigration officials have chartered 34 flights to Haiti since Biden\u2019s inauguration \u2014 including one the day before Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination \u2014 and pregnant women and infants have been among the passengers, Jozef said.<\/p>\n