Senate leader Schumer calls on Biden to end ‘hateful’ Haitian deportations

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called on President Joe Biden to stop the deportation of illegal Haitian immigrants back to the Caribbean country, calling the removals “hateful and xenophobic.”

Tens of thousands of mostly Haitian migrants crossed into the US at Del Rio, Texas, in recent days, where they gathered in a makeshift tent city under a bridge separating the US and Mexico. Amid outcry from conservatives and immigration hawks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) vowed over the weekend to speed up deportation flights, as Border Patrol agents chased down runners on horseback.

The Biden administration has not clarified whether all of the migrants will be flown home, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an immediate and wholesale end to the removals on Tuesday.

“I'm told there are four flights scheduled to deport these asylum seekers back to a country that cannot receive them. Such a decision defies common sense. It also defies common decency,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

“We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws,” he added, referring to the fact that these migrants are being removed under Title 42 of the US Code without being given the chance to apply for asylum. Enacted under former President Donald Trump at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic and continued by the Biden administration, Title 42 allows migrants to be turned back due to the threat of disease.

Texas authorities have estimated that as many as 14,000 migrants had set up camp under the bridge in Del Rio. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited the border area on Monday, where he cautioned would-be migrants against entering the US. “If you come to the US illegally, you will be returned,” he said. However, Mayorkas on Tuesday condemned Border Patrol agents for rounding escaping migrants up on horseback, calling photos that pundits alleged showed these agents using whips against the migrants “not acceptable.”

More than 1.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the US’ southern border this year so far, more than in 2020 and 2019 combined, according to Customs and Border Protection figures. While Schumer views the deportations as “xenophobic,” conservatives have repeatedly accused Biden of fomenting a humanitarian crisis by apparently refusing to crack down harder on the border-crossers.

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