US authorities have subjected Haitian asylum seekers to arbitrary detention and discriminatory and humiliating ill-treatment that amounts to race-based torture, said Amnesty International today in the new report, ‘They Did Not Treat Us Like People’: Race and Migration-Related Torture and Other Ill-Treatment of Haitians Seeking Safety in the USA.
These human rights violations, along with mass expulsions under Title 42, are the latest chapter in a long history of detention, exclusion, and the practice of trying to deter Haitians seeking safety in the United States, rooted in systemic anti-Black discrimination.
“One year ago, the Biden administration condemned the shameful scenes of mounted Border Patrol agents violently dispersing Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas. Despite this, US authorities have continued to restrict their right to seek international protection at the US-Mexico border,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.
“They have also continued to evoke the evils of slavery by shackling and handcuffing Black Haitians onboard expulsion flights, inflicting further pain and mental suffering upon them that amounts to torture under international human rights law. Our research provides ample evidence that systemic racism is embedded within the US immigration system, as described by Haitian asylum seekers interviewed for this report.”
The report shows that successive US administrations have tried to…
