Haitian Immigration to the United States Drops

United State-Mexico border at New Mexico (Wikimedia Commons).

The arrest of more than 17,000 Haitian migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in September occupied the headlines of U.S. media. This is due in large part to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) brutal treatment of the migrants. The Hill reports that the number of Haitian immigrants to the United States substantially plummeted over the past two months.

According to the Nation, a series of tragedies and crises in Haiti over the summer of 2021 largely initiated the arrival of thousands of Haitians in September. Foreign mercenaries assassinated Haitian President Jovenal Moïse at his residence on July 7 for political motivations that are still not entirely clear, says the BBC. Scientific American reports that on August 14, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti’s southern peninsula. It may have killed tens of thousands of Haitians and caused billions of dollars of damage according to modeling estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Although instability within Haiti compelled many Haitians to journey to the United States, other perilous conditions that developed for years within the rest of Latin America also spurred this mass-migration. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) finds that following the catastrophic 7.0 magnitude Haitian earthquake in 2010, hundreds of thousands of Haitians sought refuge within continental Latin America, especially Chile and Brazil. However, the Council on Foreign Relations reports that scarcer employment conditions in these countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive border laws forced many Haitians to travel north through Central America.

According to the American Immigration Council, upon their arrival, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) subjected thousands of Haitians to section 256 of Title 42, a restrictive immigration health code. Reuters finds that Title 42 was first invoked in March 2020 under the Trump administration as an emergency public health measure to remove refugees and immigrants in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because Title 42 classifies removals as “expulsions” rather than “deportations,” migrants cannot request a case before an administrative judge, says Dallas News. The American Immigration Council reports that despite Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientists’ and other public health officials’ warning that Title 42’s usage was unfounded, the Trump administration (and later, the Biden administration)  continued to invoke it, expelling 1.2 million people since the pandemic.

For example, according to AP, the Biden administration expelled nearly 15,000 migrants from a Del Rio Texas border camp in September. However, the Washington Post reports that recent CBP figures reveal that U.S. authorities only expelled 1,000 Haitian refugees in October. One possible explanation is that Haitian migrants are currently waiting in Mexico out of concern that the United States will return them to Haiti. Now, according to the Mexican government, tens of thousands of Haitians seek asylum in Mexico. 

The Biden administration has received domestic and international condemnation for its treatment of Haitians since September, including the U.S. special envoy to Haiti who resigned only two months after receiving the position.