Human Rights Watch:

The US deployment of border agents on horseback against Haitian migrants on September 19, 2021, stems from abusive and racially discriminatory immigration policies by the administration of President Joe Biden, Human Rights Watch said today. The previous day, the Department of Homeland Security announced a six-step “strategy to address the increase of migrants in [the Texas border city of] Del Rio” that included a “surge” of agents to “improve control of the area” and new expulsion flights to Haiti.

The Haitians are being returned to Haiti under a US policy known as Title 42 , which singles out asylum seekers crossing into the United States at land borders – particularly from Central America, Africa, and Haiti who are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and Latino – for expulsion. The expulsions are purportedly on public health grounds, but are discriminatory and abusive. By contrast, thousands of other travelers are able to enter the US.

“The US government showed a total disregard for the right to seek asylum when it sent agents on horseback with reins flailing to control and deter this largely Black migrant population,” said Alison Parker, US managing director at Human Rights Watch. “This violent treatment of Haitians at the border is just the latest example of racially discriminatory, abusive, and illegal US border policies that are returning people to harm and humanitarian disaster.” [Continue reading…]