“It’s really cruel to be deporting these women, children, and families knowing that you’re sending some people to be killed,” said the Executive Director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees Ninaj Raoul. 

The deportation of migrants under Title 42 is not new. More than 104,000 people have been deported under Title 42 since March 2021.

On June 30, Physicians for Human Rights wrote a letter to President Biden demanding he stop using Title 42 to deport families, citing the 3,250 documented cases of kidnappings, rapes, and other attacks against people deported or detained at the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office.

Despite efforts like PHR’s letter and the injunction against Title 42 by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, deportations of families will continue.

Outrage ensued after the image of a border patrol agent on horseback allegedly whipping a Haitian migrant at an encampment near the Del Rio International bridge was released, and coverage of the 14,000 migrants who gathered under the bridge situated at the Texas-Mexico border in September began. 

Since Sunday, Sept. 19, over 6,000 migrants have been deported from the U.S. to Haiti, said Laurent Duvillier, the Regional Chief of Communication for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNICEF.

“Haiti is not just facing one crisis, it’s a combination of crises from political instability, but also increased gang violence over the past few months,” said Duvillier.

Various United Nations agencies have warned against deporting migrants to Haiti given the country’s instability in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenal Moisie and “dire” circumstances as a result of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, according to a report by CNBC.

Duvillier has been on the ground in Haiti providing humanitarian aid to the deportees. According to recent data Duvillier received, 49 percent of migrants expelled to Haiti are women and children.

These women and children, Duvillier said, are “extremely vulnerable” to the uptick in violence in recent months.

According to the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, between January and August 31, there have been “944 intentional homicides, 124 abductions, and 78 cases of sexual and gender-based violence…with at least 159 people killed as a result of gang violence, including a four-month-old infant.”

Raoul said the situation in Haiti is especially dangerous for women, who are at risk of gender-based violence.

“There’s a lot of kidnapping and rapes going on right now,” said Raoul. “It’s like a rape epidemic.”

Raoul has been working at HWHR for 29 years, and in her time at the organization, she said she has never seen the kinds of numbers of deportations that have occurred over the past two weeks.

“We’re at record numbers of deportations here, including women and children, small children in particular,” said Raoul.

Over 40 children with non-Haitian passports have been deported to Haiti. These children do not have Haitian passports because many of the Haitian migrants at the Texas-Mexican border came from countries in South and Central America, where they had lived, worked and raised their families for years prior.

“Many of the children below the age of 10 were born either in Chile or in Brazil,” said Duvillier. “And they don’t speak Creole, they speak Spanish or Portuguese because their parents wanted them to get integrated in Chile or Brazil. So, we have a situation where we have many kids arriving in Haiti, in a country that they don’t know, not speaking the language, which makes them increasingly vulnerable to gang violence, but also to smuggling and human trafficking.”

Raoul said she was not surprised that there were thousands of Haitian migrants at the border, as “it’s basically what’s been going on for the past five years.”

She  explained that many Haitians left the country after the 2010 earthquake and were welcomed by countries like Brazil who offered humanitarian assistance and jobs. 

In 2015, however, Brazil faced an economic and political crisis and “started pushing the Haitians out, we don’t need them anymore,” said Raoul. “And people started heading north. They walked through nine or 10 countries, mostly by land and sea to get to the Mexican border and started coming up here in 2016. So that’s when we started seeing a large surge.”

The journey to the border was arduous for all migrants, but especially for women, many of whom were raped along the way. 

“These people are survivors,” said Duvillier.“They’ve witnessed extortion, smuggling, violence, rape and then reaching the U.S., they were expelled.”

Raoul said migrants are often deported because they are denied credible fear interviews which would determine if they are eligible for asylum. She worked as a translator with the Department of Justice at Guantanamo Bay during the Haitian refugee crisis in the 1990s where she conducted credible fear interviews with Haitian refugees. 

In her office, Ninaj Raoul holds a copy of Newsweek magazine from February 1, 1982 that depicts a Haitian refugee at Krome detention center. Photo by Annie Jonas.

“The credible fear interviews that we were translating for are pretty much identical to the same credible fear interviews that are supposed to be given at the border right now,” said Raoul. “I feel like we’ve gone full circle with the situations 29 years ago today.”

The road to asylum and resettlement in the U.S. is not an easy one, even for migrants who are granted asylum based on their credible fear interviews.

Raoul said the court systems that review migrants for asylum is just deporting them.

“So that means they’re going to go before a judge,” she said. “They’re going to be given a date to go before a judge, and the judge is going to say ‘why should I not deport you?’”

To ensure asylum seekers show up to their court dates, courts require seekers to wear electronic ankle monitors similar to those used on people who are incarcerated or on probation.

The monitors are known to negatively impact asylum seekers physically and emotionally. 

“For us Black people, it reminds us of slavery,” Raoul said. “We call them ‘electronic shackles.’”

She  said the use of electronic ankle monitors is part of the criminalization of Black immigrants, who are more likely to be deported than other immigrants, according to a report by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Both Haitian migrants deported back to Haiti and those granted asylum in the U.S. face an uncertain future.

“These families, children, and individuals are basically looking for life, they are migrating for survival,” said Raoul.

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Both federal and city governments have asked the organization to initiate a resettlement project to support the growing influx of Haitian immigrants, according to HAUP’s Executive Director Elsie Saint-Louis.

 “HAUP was founded because of a crisis just like this,” said Saint-Louis. “We would need additional funding to do that; we absolutely cannot do it without additional funding.”

Haitian Americans United for Progress has been serving the New York City immigrant community for 46 years. It began in 1975 as a volunteer-based organization responding to the needs of those derided as “boat people”: Haitian refugees.

“What prompted the formation of this organization was the first wave of Haitian refugees,” said Herold Dasque, Community Liaison for HAUP. “They called Haitians the boat people, and they were not received well.And now in 2021.We still have political unrest, economic trouble, and bad policies from Haiti’s government and from the US.”

 In response to this turmoil, HAUP provides completely free immigration, education, training, medical and special needs services to those in its community. 

Herold Dasque, right, explains the process of applying for TPS and receiving a social security card to Stanley, an undocumented Haitian immigrant. Photo by Annie Iezzi

Yesterday, at HAUP’s Brooklyn office in Little Haiti, Dasque aided several undocumented immigrants requesting Temporary Protected Status, switching fluently between Haitian Creole and English.

 Smiling and gesticulating, he explained to a young man, Stanley, how the process would work. He needed to sign off on his demographic information, which Dasque would seal and file with the dozens of other TPS forms awaiting mailing. HAUP covers all legal fees for its immigration services, but it cannot cover the $545 governmental price for each immigrant between the ages of 14 and 65 that it aids in application.

 This poses a significant price barrier to many Haitian immigrants, who are fleeing, among other conditions, extreme poverty in their home country. Eventually, Dasque told him, Stanley will receive a social security card and the full governmental services that are benefits of TPS.

 In May of 2021, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced an 18-month designation of TPS for Haitian Nationals, citing “serious security concerns, social unrest, and an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources.”

 Now, those problems have only been exacerbated by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated the small country on August 14th, decimating homes, churches, and businesses. This blow followed the July assassination of Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s president, which caused massive social unrest.

 But according to the Homeland Security website, immigrants to the United States who left Haiti after May 21, 2021 are not eligible for TPS and are at risk of repatriation. According to UNICEF, more than two in three Haitian migrants that have been repatriated are women and children.

 “When you have crisis upon political crisis that is creating insecurity, then you have natural disasters, a big storm, a big cyclone and within a decade two major earthquakes that destroy your country, this is expected,” said Dasque, shaking his head.

 He asserted  that the surge of Haitian refugees at the border is one that has been years in the making.

 “Everyone knew they were flying to Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, you name it,” Dasque said. “And they end up travelling from Chile all the way to the border of the US.”

 Those arriving in the U.S. have been camping under the international bridge that connects Del Rio in the United States to Mexico. While these migrants have not yet reached New York, HAUP has already seen an uptick in TPS applications. Dasque sees himself in some of the migrants who come in search of legal aid, both Haitians and non-Haitians alike.

 “I came involuntarily,” he said. “I was very young and didn’t want to leave under the dictatorship. For four years I was here without papers…I always feel a connection with those who are undocumented. In 1994, I became a citizen; that’s a personal choice. At that time, a lot of Haitians didn’t want to become citizens because there is a mentality that they ‘don’t want to be Black twice,’ not in this country.”

 The inhumane treatment of Haitian migrants at the border prompts some at HAUP to be skeptical of the White House’s statement that President Biden is working to develop a “humane immigration system.”

 “We have been fighting forever for a path to citizenship and a path to legalization,” said Saint-Louis. “I wouldn’t mind putting all of my efforts into a real move toward immigration reform, but I just don’t see it. I’m honestly not sure what humane immigration would look like.”

 Now, as it has since its founding, HAUP strives to provide comprehensive services to the community of primarily Haitians that it supports. In addition to delivering crucial immigration aid, HAUP has been organizing vaccine drives and boosting information about the Excluded Workers Fund to help community members thrive.

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 Behind their community-facing smiles, processing the brutalization of Haitians already fleeing a country in distress weighs heavily on the leadership.

“The luxury lacked by people like myself is the time to process things,” said Saint-Louis.

 I have an institution to run. There is no time for me to process how I feel. How do we prepare? What resources do we have? What resources do we need? What is our game plan?”

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Friends and supporters of Ravi Ragbir gathered on the front steps of the Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan yesterday morning to stand in solidarity with the Trinidadian immigrant who was being forced to present himself for a second yearly “check-in” with ICE.

Led by Rabbi Joshua Stanton, the group also protested what they called the racist policies affecting immigrants and organizations that support them.

“We are here fighting for justice, fighting for the rights of immigrants across our city,” said Rabbi Staton. “And we are here because we are moved by our faith traditions, by our ethical framework, and by our love for a person who has become a true leader in our city in so many ways.”

Ragbir is the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City who legally immigrated to New York in the early 90s. The Coalition works to protect the rights of immigrants and help them oppose deportation. In 2000, Ragbir was convicted of wire fraud, a charge that warrants deportation in most cases, but until recently, he had been granted temporary stays because of his work and family.

This is the second year the group has gathered to support him. Last year he came face to face with the possibility of being deported after being detained at his check-in, but ultimately was not.

The gathering started in a rally-like fashion, with speaker after speaker showing their support for Ragbir and calling for the crowd to join them. Savitri Durkee, an activist with the Stop Shop Choir, led the crowd in singing the freedom song, “Woke Up This Morning” before other choir members took the lead with “We Got the Beat of Freedom.”

“We will sing Ravi-lujah,” said Durkee.

And sing Ravi-lujah they did.

As the echoes of their songs began to fade, Ragbir left the group to face his check-in and Rabbi Stanton called for the crowd to prepare for a Jericho Walk around the building.

“We are going to begin our Jericho walk, showing with our bodies, with our hearts, with our spirits, that we will stand with Ravi,” said Rabbi Stanton. “That we are here today in support of immigrants and that we care.”

A Jericho Walk is a sort of prayer walk derived from the biblical walk that God instructed the Israelites to make around the walls of Jericho in Joshua 6. Today, those gathered formed a single file line and marched, without saying a word, in front of the United States Customs Court and Federal Building and around the entire building.   

The silent line of protestors stretches around the front of the U.S. Customs building  in a “Jericho Walk.”  Photo by Samantha Springer.

In the crisp morning air, they hoped their silence spoke volumes.

Barbara Young immigrated to the United States from Barbados in 1993. This morning, she came out to show her support for her friend Ravi Ragbir, but had to step out of the Jericho Walk after the first lap, her knee replacements preventing her from continuing her march. For her, being here to show her support is personal.

“I know him personally,” said Young. “I was involved with a local organization of domestic workers here in New York, and he was an organizer in the social justice movement. He came to our organization to speak to the women and give the support they needed at that time. Today, I am very sad at what’s going on.”

She is not sure what the future holds for immigrants and others like Ragbir who she, and many of the others gathered, believe are being targeted for their activism in immigration politics, but moments like this morning restore some of her hope in the solidarity of the movement.

“I’m here with a heavy heart,” said Young. “But it kind of lifted my spirit to know, when I see how many people are standing here with him today, to know that I can come out and support him.”

Protestors from an organization in Arizona called No More Deaths also participated. Holding signs that read “Water not Walls” and cardboard cut-outs of water jugs, these men and women demonstrated their outrage at the decision made by a federal court in Tucson on January 18th to convict volunteers who left water in the desert for migrants.

John Washington from No More Deaths took the microphone and spoke of the charges.

“Four of our volunteers…” said Washington, “just a couple weeks ago were charged and convicted of littering for leaving water out on particularly brutal stretches of western Arizona deserts.”

According to Washington, another one of their volunteers, Scott Warren, was charged for allegedly harboring migrants and faces up to 20 years in prison.

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After fleeing Peru in 2001 because he was persecuted for being gay, Jair Izquierdo settled in New Jersey, met his future husband, and started a life with him. But that life was brought to an abrupt halt last year when Izquierdo was deported for being in the country illegally.

Izquierdo and his partner, American citizen Richard Dennis of Jersey City, N.J., are one of thousands of binational same-sex couples in the United States that struggle with deportation. They were joined together by a civil union, but Izquierdo was an illegal immigrant, and because immigration law is federal, rather than state, Dennis was unable to sponsor him for citizenship.

“Most people don’t even realize how screwed up it is,” Dennis said of the current immigration law and how it applies to gay couples. “There’s so much subjectivity and fear and misinformation.”

The Defense of Marriage Act

The problem for couples like Dennis and Izquierdo is the Defense of Marriage Act, which ruled in 1996 that marriage is a legal union between a man and a woman. Because of DOMA, the federal government and its agencies, including those responsible for immigration benefits, are prohibited from recognizing same-sex marriages and civil unions.

“It’s very hard to explain to the many people who call us every day because it’s so patently unjust,” said Victoria Neilson, the legal director at Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocates for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered immigrants.

In February, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer continue to defend DOMA in the courts. However, it will be enforced until Congress or the Supreme Court votes to strike it down. In the meantime, the administration claims to be focusing on immigrants with criminal records.

This makes sense, Neilson said, because the backlog of immigration cases in each state would ease up, and many immigrants with clean records and ties to the community would have their cases closed. But whether this theory is being put into practice is a source of contention.

“It doesn’t really seem like the word has reached the field of the actual attorneys and ICE agents who are charged with deciding whether to put people in removal proceedings or not,” Neilson said, referring to the people working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Dennis echoes Neilson’s concerns.

“They talk tough about secure communities and weeding out criminals, but I think that they just want to deport as many people as possible,” he said. “So the rhetoric doesn’t match the actions and it doesn’t match reality.”

Fighting for “Traditional” Marriage

Immigration Equality advocates for same-sex marriage so couples like Dennis and Izquierdo can be together. On the other side of the issue are the signers of the Manhattan Declaration, who believe in the traditional marriage view that DOMA reinforces.

Helen Alvare, a professor at the George Mason University School of Law, signed the declaration because she believes that maintaining traditional marriage protects children. She wants the government to consider new reforms that scholars and legislators have come up with that would result in what she calls “equal recognition.”

Then she heard the story of Dennis and Izquierdo. She called their separation “a huge tragedy in their lives,” but was left unconvinced that the laws of marriage should be changed.

“Is this situation really enough to overturn the argument that we really need to make something special of opposite sex unions?” Alvare asked. She said that traditional marriage still needs to be honored above all.

For couples like Dennis and Izquierdo, she suggested going some other way than “the marriage route.”

“Changing marriage as a tool for [immigration benefits] is not enough.”

Other Options

According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, there are an estimated 28,500 binational same-sex couples living in the United States. The options are limited if the foreign partner is in the country illegally, especially if it has been for longer than a year, like it was for Izquierdo.

“If someone’s here with a visa and they overstay, under current immigration law, it’s almost impossible to change from being here illegally to being here legally within the United States,” said Neilson. “And if a person leaves the country to try and legalize their status, if they have been here over a year, they can’t come back for ten years.”

Izquierdo applied for asylum after having been in the country for five years, and was denied. A series of appeals and requests to reopen the case have led to a court sending the decision back to the immigration judge, claiming the reasoning to not reopen were invalid.

Dennis said that they will move to Canada or Europe if Izquierdo cannot come back to the U.S., a common remedy among binational couples.

“We do see a fair amount of couples who end up giving up on the U.S. entirely and starting a new life in Canada,” Neilson said.

Ending DOMA

Since the current Congress has not passed much legislation, Immigration Equality is looking to the Supreme Court to repeal DOMA. Neilson suspects that the earliest this could happen is 2013, so Immigration Equality is pursuing other legislative actions in the meantime.

The Uniting American Families Act is pending, a bill that would amend immigration law to say “permanent partner” where “spouse” exists, so an American can sponsor his or her partner for immigration benefits.

There’s also the Respect for Marriage Act, which would legislatively appeal DOMA. Immigration Equality also encourages its clients to call their political representatives and ask for their help.

“When you work with lesbian and gay immigrant families, you see that it’s not an abstract right,” Neilson said. “It’s a fundamental desire to just be with the person you love. And that’s just such a heart-wrenching situation to talk to someone who finally found the person they want to be with, and they can’t be with them because of this unjust law. It’s got to go.”

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DETAINED from Elizabeth Wagner on Vimeo.

The post The Border Project: Detained appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

In Nogales, Mexico, the border wall is decorated with art and spray painted messages. This says, 'Walls are scars on the earth.' Photo by Rachel Morgan

Nogales, Mexico — Jose Estrada* was deported to Mexico five days ago. In three days, he plans to cross the border again.

“When they pick(ed) me up, they asked me, ‘Why you keep trying to cross?’ ” he said of the Border Patrol agents who caught him. “And I tell them, ‘I’m hungry; I’m hungry.’ ”

But Estrada hasn’t always been hungry. Prior to his deportation, he lived in the United States for nearly 20 years.

Although he wasn’t a legal citizen, Estrada had a house, a truck and several jobs. He worked in Kansas on a cattle farm, and most recently in Phoenix, where he made $12.50 an hour working in the fields, laying concrete and landscaping.

Six months ago, Estrada was driving his truck in Phoenix when he was stopped by a police officer.

“This is the problem that (every) Mexican has,” he said. “I don’t know why they stop Mexicans for the brown skin. Why? I don’t understand.”

Estrada is a small man. He wears jeans, a T-shirt, and carries a jacket and plastic bag. On his head sits a baseball cap with one word: “Arizona.” Estrada wears it proudly, like a badge of honor.

He has a playful demeanor and often laughs, flashing his silver-capped teeth.

After they are picked up at the border trying to illegally cross into the United States, many immigrants are brought back to Nogales, Mexico, where they take buses home or attempt to cross again. Photo by Rachel Morgan

Now, he sits in a bus terminal in Mexico. About 50 others, mostly young men, sit on a large, shaded slab of concrete in old rows of upholstered seats that were ripped from buses. They all carry jackets — practical garb for those who attempt to navigate the harsh desert and cross the border under the cover of night.

None of these men have been successful in their journeys. They have all been deported and are awaiting buses that will take them back to their hometowns in Mexico.

Aid workers say they often see the same people again and again at the bus terminal after failed attempts to cross the border.

“I always say, ‘It’s nice to know you’re safe, but not under these circumstances,’ ” said Hannah Hafter, a volunteer for No More Deaths, an aid organization for illegal immigrants.

Many deported immigrants will return to their hometowns via this terminal. Estrada, however, doesn’t plan to go back. He needs to get back into the U.S. to support his family.

Estrada is separated from his wife and has five children — four daughters and a son. Along with his parents, they live in Sinaloa, Mexico, in the northwest part of the country.

“I need to make money because (my children) are in school, and I need to make money to pay for their computers,” he said. “I need to make money for my kids, my mother, father — to pay for birthday parties, Christmas, piñatas.”

Estrada’s strategy for crossing the border is rather unique: He rides a bicycle in the pitch black desert night, darting off the side of the road when he sees headlights.

“It’s so dark, and I wear dark clothes so they no see me,” he said. He declines to name which roads he frequents, so the Border Patrol doesn’t “look out” for him.

He said he’s tried to get papers to cross back into the country legally.

“I need papers, but they won’t give me papers,” he said.

But with his track record of being caught crossing the border illegally, obtaining legal papers may be difficult.

While Estrada is unsure of a solution for his problem, he does have a backup plan.

“I need to find an American girl to marry me on the other side,” he said with a mischievous grin.

*Names have been changed.

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