Trigger warning: anti-Black violence at the Texas border
John,
When we say #DefundThePolice, we mean all the police, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), who are demonstrating their slave-catching roots, riding horseback, and beating Haitian asylum-seekers with whips.
Earlier this week, appalling images and videos emerged of Border Patrol agents in Del Rio, Texas riding horseback and using whips on Haitian migrants.
CBP, like other law enforcement agencies, are rooted in white supremacy and a history of slave-catching. These images and videos depict a painful reminder that this country is so backwards, that we're living in our past.
This is really happening under a Democratic president who claimed he was the one to implement humane immigration methods -- and we know that Black migrants are especially targeted for deportation and brutality. All the while claiming to be better than Trump, President Biden left in place a pandemic-era expulsion policy under which most migrants and asylum-seekers caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are to be immediately sent back.
BLM is joining Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and other Black migrant-led social justice groups in calling on the Biden Administration to grant humanitarian parole to Black asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border and to stop all expulsions and deportations. We need to show President Biden just how many of us are against the inhumane practices he's allowed at the border.
We demand the kind of change necessary to not only stop the dehumanization of Haitian migrants and asylum-seekers, but take corrective action that moves the U.S. towards foreign policy and immigration policies that disrupt U.S. imperialism and makes restitution for its long history of destabilization in Haiti and the world. Sign the petition and demand he takes action immediately.
Violent attacks against Haitian and other Black asylum-seekers have been ongoing for years. The dehumanization of Black migrants is being carried out under the Biden Administration, comes after Trump's caging of migrant children and attempting to build a border wall, and precedes both the Obama and Clinton administrations.
There have been attempts to destabilize and punish Haiti since Black Haitians liberated themselves from slavery in 1804. The U.S. conspired with France and Canada to overthrow the Haitian President in 2004 for many reasons, not the least of which was his demand that the French pay reparations to Haiti. The notion that the United States can continue foreign policy that destabilizes and then rejects and brutalizes Haitian asylum-seekers must be vigorously challenged.
This is why we say #DefundThePolice. This is why we say reimagine public safety. This is why we say we need to center care and humanity over violence.
Today more than 14,000 Haitian migrants are attempting to seek asylum in the U.S. as they grapple with the ongoing impacts of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenal Moise earlier this summer, an earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people and destroyed countless homes and properties, dislocating Haitians across the board, and a COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged through their communities.
We cannot forget the
centuries of foreign policy aimed at destabilizing Haiti -- no doubt in retaliation for the Haitian Revolution and the assertion that Black people are entitled to their freedom.
All this to be met with whips and other forms of anti-Black violence at the border as they desperately seek food, water and shelter, and asylum.
The real question is: When is enough,
enough? Children being separated from their families wasn't enough? Children sleeping in cages wasn't enough? Black migrants from Haiti being whipped isn’t enough?
President Biden must grant humanitarian parole to Black asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border and stop all expulsions and deportations immediately. Sign on so he hears our demands loud and clear.
John, this work is never easy -- but it's truly on each and every one of us to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. This is one of those times.
Let's get this done.
In love and solidarity,
Black Lives Matter
