Haitians are still being deported from the border. Experts say their plight exposes bias against Black refugees
- The Biden administration faces pressure over viral images showing mistreatment of Haitian migrants.
- Black immigrant rights groups are calling on the administration to halt deportations of Haitians.
- Black migrants make up 7% of the undocumented population, but make up 20% of all deportations.
The massive repatriation operation that has sent more than 5,000 Haitian and other Black refugees back to the island nation has only ramped up in recent days.
Since viral images of refugees escaping ICE agents first garnered backlash last month, at least 60 ICE flights to Haiti, carrying approximately upwards of 100 people each flight.
Local, Black immigrant rights groups are teaming up with national organizations to call out President Joe Biden's administration over their treatment of Haitians on the border.
"They cleared out Del Rio of victims, or witnesses, and all forensic evidence! " Nana Gyamfi Executive Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration told Insider of the 3,000 estimated refugees removed by authorities.
"They Ajax that mess. They cleared it out. You have this complete cover-up," she added.
Biden administration faces pressure from Black Immigrant organization
In a statement, The Department of Homeland Security said "the majority of migrants continue to be expelled under CDC's Title 42 authority," first instituted under former President Donald Trump.
The clause in the 1944 Public Health Services Law allows the government to prevent entry of individuals during a public health crisis. The Biden administration has carved out an exception for unaccompanied children who show up to the border.
DHS is conducting regular expulsion and removal flights to Haiti, Mexico, Ecuador, and Northern Triangle countries."
From October last year to August, 938,045 migrants have been repatriated under the law, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.
The scrutiny of the Biden administration hasn't stopped there. Reports of migrants being loaded on ICE flights, shackled by their wrists and ankles, has drawn backlash from immigrant rights groups..
A coalition of Black immigration organizations including UndocuBlack Network, and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration filed a complaint last month with the DHS's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
The organizations are calling on the Biden administration to investigate why migrants were shuffled away Friday before observers could speak with them as part of ICE's processing of refugees.
The complaint, Gyamfi told Insider, accuses ICE officers of physical and verbal abuse, as well as violations of US and International law.
"They are talking about doing an investigation, who are you going to interview with? You're deporting all the victims and witnesses," Gyamfi said.
"How are we going to know about the blood that was left on the ground because you've done bulldozed the earth," she added.
Criticism is coming from in and out the administration
The administration's treatment of Haitians at the border led US Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote to resign last week in protest of the "inhumane counterproductive" treatment.
In his resignation letter, Foote argued how the plight of Haitians at the border compounds a larger problem of interventionist US policy in Haiti.
Gyamfi told Insider that while criticism of the Biden administration is valid, the government's disparate treatment of Black immigrants goes back far longer.
Black immigrants make up 7% of the undocumented population, but make up 20% of all deportations - according to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
Haitians per capita are the most deported nationality, and they make up 44% of all families in ICE detention facilities, according to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
Many of the Haitian refugees that had been under the Del Rio bridge the last few weeks were laborers and construction workers in Columbia, Chile, and Brazil.
One man was sent to Haiti even though he is Angolan.
Once migrants are taken into DHS custody, Breanne Palmer, Interim Policy & Advocacy Director for UndocuBlack Network, says that many Haitian migrants are confused about what is going on.
Experts on the ground noted a lack of French and Haitian Creole speakers.
Critics say they'll 'keep the pressure' Biden administration
An appeals court, on Friday, suspended a previous federal order halting the Biden's administration's use of a pandemic-related border policy permitting the removal of migrants from the southern border.
Neither DHS and ICE responded to Insider's request for comment.
Palmer told Insider organizations like UndocuBlack "are working very hard to keep the pressure on the Biden administration to stop deportations," and to stop the use of Title 42.
"The fact that ports of entry are closed to people seeking asylum and other protection is totally unacceptable," Palmer said. "It's not supported by the science or by public health measures."