Haitians fleeing their country amidst a humanitarian and human rights crisis should be welcomed and have the right to seek safety in the USA without discrimination
In response to unconfirmed reports that the Biden administration is considering holding Haitian asylum seekers in a third country or expanding capacity at an existing facility at the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International said:
“Haitians fleeing their country amidst a humanitarian and human rights crisis should be welcomed and have the right to seek safety in the USA without discrimination. They must not be held in a third country or a US navy base infamous for unlawful and indefinite arbitrary detention and torture.”
“Amnesty International has demonstrated that successive US governments have tried to deter Haitian people from claiming asylum in the United States through the application of policies designed to intercept, detain, and remove them, starting in the 1970s and continuing with Title 42. Their tactics have included unlawful pushbacks at sea, mass detention, torture or other ill-treatment, and expedited removal proceedings with deficiencies in individualized screenings. In the 1990s, for instance, US authorities shamefully detained Haitian asylum seekers in poor conditions in camps in Guantánamo Bay.”
Haitians fleeing their country amidst a humanitarian and human rights crisis should be welcomed and have the right to seek safety in the USA without discrimination
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International
“It is time for the United States to put a stop once and for all to this discriminatory treatment and make sure that Haitian asylum seekers have access to US territory and due process without discrimination to exercise their rights to seek asylum, including individualized assessments of their international protection claims. The ongoing operations at the Guantánamo Bay naval base are already marred with horrendous human rights violations, and Amnesty International has long called for the detention facility to be shuttered for good. The United States must refrain from using this site to commit more abuses.”
