USCRI’s Statement on the Biden Administration’s Expulsion Flights to Haiti
ARLINGTON, VA — The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) strongly condemns the Biden administration’s move to expel and push back thousands of Haitian migrants from U.S. borders. Haiti is experiencing extraordinary turmoil and danger, as the administration just recently acknowledged through its grant of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians already residing in the United States. According to the Federal Register notice by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security just over one month ago,
“Haiti is grappling with a deteriorating political crisis, violence, and a staggering increase in human rights abuses… Haiti faces the challenges of ‘rising food insecurity, and malnutrition… waterborne disease epidemics, and high vulnerability to natural hazards, all of which have been further exacerbated by the coronavirus disease.”
This assessment was made before the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti in August, killing over 2,000 people and destroying over 100,000 homes. The multiple crises in Haiti have caused Haitians to flee in search of safety, but the Biden administration is now pushing Haitians back and is planning to begin conducting multiple daily expulsion flights of Haitians back to the center of the danger. This is unacceptable; the United States is a country that prides itself on championing human rights, but these policies are in direct contravention of our legal and moral obligation not to return people to places where their lives will be in danger.
USCRI calls on the Biden administration to immediately stop expulsions of all Haitians, and to commit to ending the use of Title 42 and all other measures implemented to prevent vulnerable migrants from exercising their basic human right to seek asylum at our borders.
