'Horrible' Treatment Of Haitian Migrants Prompts Majority Leader To Call For End of Expulsions
Removals have been under a Trump-era policy
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), like others, have been repulsed in recent days by images from the southern border of the United States of Haitian migrants being chased down by US border agents on horseback using what appear to be whips.
These images, which have emerged on social media and elsewhere, have drawn the attention of the press, the White House, as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
An investigation is underway into the brutality of border agents using whips against other human beings, according to Vice President Kamala Harris.
More than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from an encampment at a Texas border town, in a federal response that included immediately deporting migrants to their impoverished Caribbean country and using horse patrols to stop them from entering the town.
The Biden administration has been expelling Haitian immigrants under a Trump administration policy using a public health law known as Title 42, to speed deportations.
Schumer went to the floor of the Senate Tuesday to decry the brutality, as well as to demand an end to the removals of the Haitians.
“We’ve all seen these horrible images coming from our southern border as Haitian asylum-seekers—simply looking to escape tyranny and the problems that they have in their country—have been met at our doorstep with unimaginable indignity,” Schumer said. “Images of Haitian migrants being hit with whips and other forms of physical violence is completely unacceptable. This behavior must be addressed and we must provide accountability. The images turn your stomach. It must be stopped, this kind of violence.”
A nation in turmoil and strife, it's in no position to accept the return of the migrants, Schumer said.
“Right now, I am told there are four flights scheduled to deport these asylum seekers back to a country that cannot receive them. Such a decision defies common sense. It also defies common decency and what America is all about. Remember that harbor—that Lady in the harbor in the city in which I live,” the majority leader said, referring to the Statue of Liberty. “I urge President Biden and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas to immediately put a stop to these expulsions and to end this Title 42 policy at our southern border. We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws. We must allow asylum seekers to present their claims at our ports of entry and be afforded due process.
“I commit to work with this administration to providing the resources so that we can establish safe, orderly, and humane processes for those seeking protection,” Schumer added. “Again, the policies that are being enacted now—and the horrible treatment of these innocent people who have come to the border—must stop immediately.”
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