Biden Urged to End Hateful Haitian Expulsions
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After the United States has been put under fire for how it is treating Haitian migrants, the top Democrat leader urges Biden to end hateful deportations of them.
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A United States border patrol agent on horseback using a rein against a Haitian migrant to prevent them from entering an encampment near Rio Grande, Texas on September 19, 2021 (AFP).
Democrat Senator and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Tuesday US President Joe Biden to end the mass deportations of Haitian immigrants that the United States has been seeing for the past while, casing the North American country to be subjected to a wave of criticism. The criticism comes as the US is tightening its immigration system and abusing refugees.
Border patrol agents are seen abusing immigrants amid a massive influx, thousands of which are from Haiti. One Republican senator labeled the influx of refugees as a "monumental disaster" for the Biden administration.
US Customs and Border Protection said they would expel the majority of said immigrants under the pretext of Title 42, a policy put in place by the Trump administration to keep immigrants out of the United States from the southern border on the grounds that "migrants could spread COVID-19."
"I urge President Biden to immediately put a stop to these expulsions and to end this Title 42 policy at our southern border," Schumer said on the Senate floor.
He called the laws 'hateful' and 'xenophobic,' attributing them to the Trump administration and saying "they disregard our refugee laws."
The United States began Saturday sending hundreds of Haitian nationals back to their disaster-stricken country, which was hit by a catastrophic earthquake and political turmoil following the assassination of their president.
The depths of the crisis were revealed after an AFP photographer took pictures of the situation on the border, and in turn, those pictures spread over social media. The images showed riders swinging their reins at migrants as a means of threatening them and pushing them back toward the Rio Grande.
Reporters asked US President Joe Biden about the pictures at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, to which he said he would "get it under control."
Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters she was "deeply troubled" by the pictures. The UN itself voiced concern regarding the deportations, warning that they put people with serious asylum claims at risk.
The United States attempted to justify the images, as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the mounted officers captured were trying to "manage the flow of hundreds of migrants" crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico near Del Rio, Texas.
Critics went as far as comparing the scenes to the 19th-century violence during slavery when mounted police or prison guards habitually whipped Black Americans.
Biden pledged to take a more humanitarian approach with regard to immigration than his predecessor, Donald Trump. However, his administration has evidently failed, facing mounting political pressure to properly address the crisis from both Republicans and Democrats.
