Amnesty International

Secretary

Alejandro

Mayorkas

Department of Homeland Security

President Joseph Biden and Secretary Mayorkas,

As a supporter of Amnesty International, I am writing to you with my utmost support for the right to seek asylum. The USA must stop Haitian expulsions and deportations and the ill-treatment of Black people in the immigration system and restore asylum immediately.

Tens of thousands of Haitians, including pregnant people, children, and infants, have been forcibly returned to a humanitarian crisis in Haiti under Title 42. Amnesty’s new research found that between September 2021 and May 2022, 25,806 Haitian asylum-seekers were deported back in at least 227 flights from the U.S. (compared to a total of 37 flights in all of 2020).

Amnesty’s breaking research on Haitian expulsions has found that the treatment of Haitians amounts to race-based torture, rooted in systemic anti-Black discrimination. From having their human right to seek asylum denied, to being deported in shackles and chains, Haitians are faced with anti-Black discrimination at every turn. In fact, Amnesty’s findings confirm that the use of restraints on Haitian asylum-seekers amounts to race-based torture under international human rights law.

Amnesty’s new report also found that the treatment Haitians experienced in U.S. detention facilities – which included a harsh combination of lack of access to food, healthcare, information, interpreters, and lawyers – quickly reached the threshold of ill-treatment under international human rights law. Asylum-seekers and immigrants can navigate the immigration process with the support of sponsors and community-based nonprofits, without detention or restrictive “alternatives” that still criminalize, surveil, and harm communities of color. Many immigrants and asylum-seekers already have long-standing family, faith, and other community ties in the United States. A presumption of liberty must be incorporated into all custody decisions, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts with private prison corporations and county jails must be phased out.

Lawmakers who consider themselves champions of racial justice and allies to immigrant communities should not align themselves with any sort of policies like Title 42 that block the right to seek asylum and punish and force communities of color into danger. In October 2022, the Biden administration shamefully announced the expansion of the application of Title 42. This policy has no basis in public health and runs contrary to U.S. and international obligations to uphold the rights of all to seek safety. All people have a right to seek safety, regardless of familial or financial ties, and any parole program should not supplant the right to seek asylum.

The administration must also stop any and all inhumane and unjust removals to Haiti. Our recent report found that Haitian asylum-seekers continue to be disproportionately impacted by Title 42, and the U.S.’ historic ill-treatment of Haitians does not stop when Title 42 does. Your administration has the discretion to stop deportations to Haiti and should exercise this authority, immediately.
 
I call on your administration to:
- Fully restore asylum at the border once and for all, including by immediately ending Title 42 without replacing it with any other anti-asylum policies;
- End anti-Black racism in the immigration system;
- Immediately stop any and all deportations to Haiti; and
- End the use of arbitrary, mass immigration detention.
People across the country and around the world are watching. This is your time to show leadership with compassion and humanity.

Kind regards,
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President

Joseph

Biden

White House

President Joseph Biden and Secretary Mayorkas,

Kind regards,
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