While in a migrant detention center in Arizona, U.S. authorities separated Phillipe and Edeline from their newborn baby and did not see him again until they were transported by bus – handcuffed and footcuffed – to the plane that took them. I would deport him to Haiti.
With this and 23 other testimonies, the organization Amnesty International (AI) denounces in a new report published yesterday, Thursday, the mistreatment to which Haitian asylum seekers are subjected in what it qualifies as “torture based on race” and a violation of the international right.
“Our research offers abundant evidence that systemic racism is embedded in the American immigration system,” said the organization’s director for the Americas, Erika Guevara, according to a statement.
Since the middle of last year, the US has seen an increase in the number of Haitians crossing the border with Mexico and seeking asylum in the country.
The report details that cases like that of Phillipe and Edeline, where parents were separated from their children, were not isolated and that the authorities even detained babies as young as nine and 14 months. According to Amnesty International, the Haitian migrants did not have access to sufficient food, health care or legal information during their detention.