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They’re the kind of images you can’t forget. Black people wading in water. Children wailing. And white people on horses, cracking whips, shouting orders. It brings up generational anger. But the brutality inflicted on Black Haitians immigrating to the U.S. is so very recent.
The Border Patrol agents pictured were stopping Haitians from entering the U.S. at the border in Del Rio, Texas. Beyond the pictures, they were cursing, pushing, and chasing the asylum-seekers, many of whom were families “fleeing toward what they thought was safety” for months.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ response?
To get rid of the horses! And to deport Haitians in droves. “We made a determination, based upon the facts, that in fact individuals could be safely returned to Haiti,” Mayorkas announced. And he’s wrong.
In nine days, the U.S. sent away 4,000 Haitians seeking asylum after the fallout of natural disaster and the U.S.’s century-long intervention in their homeland. But the U.S. is using COVID-19 as an excuse, nearly violating international law in the name of anti-Blackness and xenophobia.
Like always, this country will try to “reform” without actually addressing the bigger issue: people are outraged about the brutality, not the horses. And on a larger scale? We are angry that this system of brutalizing and deporting immigrants itself exists at all.