Migration and Haiti News
There has been a brief, no doubt temporary, respite from the expulsion of people back to Haiti under Title 42 this week.
Quixote Center recognizes migration as a fundamental human right under international law. In the United States, migrants strengthen our economy, enrich our culture, and strengthen our social fabric.
Quixote Center’s principal international partnership is with the Red Franciscana para Migrantes (RFM - Franciscan Network for Migrants). RFM connects Franciscan-run shelters and other humanitarian assistance programs for migrants who are making the dangerous trek through Mexico, Central America, and South America. We support RFM by
Quixote Center and RFM organize Solidarity Trips since 2022 as part of our advocacy and education mission, bringing U.S. based migrant justice activists and other professionals to Southern Mexico and Panama to see firsthand how the U.S. immigration impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homelands to seek a new life, in the United States or elsewhere.
View our Between Borders video series HERE.
Find out more about our Solidarity Travel Program HERE.
There has been a brief, no doubt temporary, respite from the expulsion of people back to Haiti under Title 42 this week.
Between October 1, 2021 and April 30, 2022, the US Border Patrol encountered a number equivalent to 1 out of every 69 Nicaraguans trying to get into the United States - a higher portion relative to population than any other country in Central America this year. “Encounter” refers to someone apprehended for attempting to enter the United States in an unauthorized manner, or deemed inadmissible at a port of entry, or anyone expelled under Title 42 authority.
Quixote Center Denounces Preliminary Injunction on Title 42; Continues Call for Restoration of Asylum
Washington D.C.—Today a federal court in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's decision to end Title 42. This decision means that the United States Border Patrol is required to continue to expel migrants immediately upon encounter, thus, denying refugees access to asylum or other humanitarian relief.
At 6 AM on a Wednesday, I joined community organizers and volunteers outside Union Station to greet migrants bused from the US-Mexico border to Washington DC. I expected everyone to arrive haggard and exhausted, as I feel after just a few hours on a bus. Instead, they came bright-faced and smiling, exuberant to have arrived.
The Biden Administration expelled 450 people to Haiti, including 44 children, 20 of whom were infants, on three flights this week. These flights bring the total to 235 expulsion flights to Haiti since Biden took office, more than 23,000 people in total, and 21,000 in the eight months since the debacle in Del Rio last September. Another 8,000 people were summarily expelled into Mexico during the Del Rio crisis.
“I'm not here because I want to be here. I'm here to save the lives of my children.” - Mexican asylum seeker, expelled under Title 42 in March 2022
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
Texas' governor Greg Abbot is putting immigrants on buses to Washington, D.C., apparently as some kind of protest related to the Biden administration's decision to end Title 42. The first bus arrived on Wednesday, April 13, but not at Homeland Security, Congress or the White House. Rather, the bus arrived in front of a building on Capitol Hill that houses several television networks' newsrooms, including Fox.
“Expelling asylum seekers under Title 42 has not done anything to protect us from COVID” From the Congressional Testimony of Dr. Adam Richards, Physicians for Human Rights
Title 42 appears to be on its way out. After two years and 1.8 million expulsions, impacting well over 1 million people, Biden announced, and the CDC confirmed, that Title 42 would end on May 23, 2022.
April 1, 2022 | Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1st, 2022
CONTACT: Alexandra Gulden
alexandra@quixote.org
301-699-0042
Washington D.C.—Today, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky issued a new order terminating the Title 42 order on May 23rd. Under the Trump-era policy, U.S. border officials were allowed to summarily expel or turn away over a million migrants and asylum seekers. The Quixote Center issued the following statement in response:
The Centers for Disease Control and Protection issued the Order Suspending Introduction of Certain Persons from Countries Where a Communicable Disease Exists on March 20, 2020. The order claimed authority under Sections 362 and 365 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, 42 U.S.C.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 21, 2022
CONTACT: Alexandra Gulden
alexandra@quixote.org
504-495-6970
“‘He won over everyone with his smile, fearlessness and determination worthy of a real hero,' the statement said. It is unclear why the boy was unaccompanied.”
The story of an 11-year-old boy, who was put on a train to Slovakia by his parents so he could get out of Ukraine, was celebrated by Slovakian authorities who called him a “hero of the night.”