Haiti’s Unforgivable Blackness

On September 19th, photographers captured a harrowing scene at the US Mexico border: Border Patrol agents, on horseback, chasing and intimidating a large group of Haitian migrants as they tried to cross into Texas.

The images sparked outrage, and President Joe Biden eventually condemned the actions of the agents. But since that day, the Department of Homeland Security has expelled nearly 4,000 Haitian migrants on 37 flights to Haiti — without giving them a chance to claim asylum — under a Trump-era public health rule designed to protect the US from incoming disease. 

Nana Gyamfi, the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, says that the administration is hiding behind policy, rather than standing up for migrants. And for people like Garry Pierre-Pierre, a Hatian-American journalist who founded the Haitian Times news site, it’s been hard to feel like he’s stuck between his adoptive country and his homeland. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Top U.S. diplomat in Haiti resigns over ‘inhumane’ treatment of migrants
• Treatment of Haitians at the border in Texas exposes double standard toward refugees
• Into America: Protecting Florida Farmworkers