AIS Statement: AIS Calls for Halt to Deportations to Haiti and Other Actions That Disparately Impact Black Immigrants

administration must also stop Title 42 expulsions which hinder due process and access to humanitarian protections

The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors (AIS) is a national network of organizations, advocates, and allies dedicated to ensuring that immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and other gender-based abuses have access to life-saving protections that all survivors of violence deserve. The four co-chair organizations of the AIS network call for an end to the ongoing mass expulsions of Haitians.

In order for our anti-violence work to be impactful, we must work to dismantle all forms of oppression, including racism. We are deeply concerned about enforcement actions that disparately affect Black asylum-seekers and immigrants. We give our collective support to Black-led immigrant rights organizations who are calling on President Biden and the Department of Homeland Security to halt deportations and expulsions to Haiti and make other necessary reforms to policies that are disparately impacting Black immigrants.

A core tenet of our work is that all individuals deserve to live in safety and free from violence, which is why the deportation and expulsion flights to Haiti must immediately be halted given the major crisis currently unfolding in the country. Such instability fosters conditions where sexual and domestic violence thrive. Already, hundreds of Haitians have been deported, including families with young children and infants. As Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, has powerfully stated, “We should be providing protection for those people, but we are sending them into a burning house.” 

We support the efforts of over 60 members of Congress who have called for an immediate end to “Title 42 expulsions.” Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act was unjustly used by the previous administration to justify inhumane deportations during the Covid-19 pandemic. These Title 42 expulsions form the basis of many of these enforcement actions disproportionately impacting Black immigrants. Given the current administration’s recent actions of rescinding the Immigrant Visa Ban under the rationale that it “is detrimental to the interests of the United States,” we call on President Biden to also rescind the Title 42 expulsion policy as it hinders due process and access to humanitarian protections afforded under the law. 

Tragically, Black History Month this year started with reports of ICE deporting Black immigrants, impacting not only Haitian immigrants but those from African countries such as Cameroon, Mauritania, and others. We join the urgent call for the Biden-Harris Administration to take immediate actions to halt these deportations and expulsions and provide remedies to those impacted.