Six month anniversary Del Rio report details a living legacy of anti-Haitian discrimination in U.S. immigration system

Six months after photos revealed mounted Border Patrol agents chasing and grabbing Haitian migrants to prevent them from bringing food to their families, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Haitian Bridge Alliance have released a new report unveiling the full scope of the abuses that occurred in Del Rio, Texas, and in some cases are ongoing.

The joint report includes testimonies and information obtained by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights through in-person and phone interviews with survivors and witnesses, detailing human rights abuses committed by the Department of Homeland Security and others against Haitian immigrants in the Del Rio encampment. It also documents continued abuses inflicted on Black immigrants after the U.S. government hastened to clear Del Rio and erase all evidence of wrongdoing. Among them: continued mass expulsions of Haitians fleeing persecution and torture; continued abuses in ICE detention centers; and continued separation of family members.

A series of recommendations for the Biden administration to adopt to begin to rectify the harm it caused in Del Rio and beyond are also offered. They include immediately rescinding Title 42 and the Migration Protection Protocols, immigration policies that violate U.S. and international law and were designed to eliminate access to asylum for Black and brown people; providing increased funding and support for civil society organizations assisting asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border; ending all expulsions and deportations to Haiti; fulfilling the Administration’s promise to investigate the human and civil rights abuses committed at Del Rio; providing humanitarian parole to those harmed; ending all ICE contracts with for-profit prisons and updating the Haiti’s eligibility date for Temporary Protected Status.

A copy of the report can be viewed in full here.