Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging President Joe Biden to stop deporting Haitian asylum seekers.
During a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Schumer said, “We’ve all seen these horrible images coming from our southern border as Haitian asylum seekers simply looking to escape tyranny… have been met at our door-step with unimaginable [indignity].
The New York senator’s comments appeared to reference images of Border Patrol agents aggressively confronting migrants at the border.
“Right now, I’m 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,” he continued.
Finally, he said, “I urge President Biden and [Homeland Security] Secretary 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.”
Watch the video below:
.@SenSchumer: "I urge President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas to immediately put a stop to these expulsions…We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws." pic.twitter.com/hf1uT6YwtX
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 21, 2021
As The Guardian notes, “Thousands of Haitians encamped under and near a bridge in the town of Del Rio faced a ramped-up US exclusion effort on Tuesday, with six flights to their homeland. More than 6,000 migrants had been removed by Monday, officials said. On the other side of the border, Mexico had begun flights of its own.”
Haiti was thrown into political turmoil earlier this year after gunmen assassinated the island nation’s president.
And last month, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti left at least 2,200 people dead.
The Biden administration has continued a Trump-era policy of deporting immigrants, except children, immediately.
As The Associated Press notes, “Any Haitians not expelled are subject to immigration laws, which include rights to seek asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection. Families are quickly released in the U.S. because the government cannot generally hold children.”