INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DEMAND THE END OF TITLE 42 AND VIOLENCE AT THE SOUTHERN BORDERJUSTICE FOR THE HAITIAN AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
ABYA YALA, September 23, 2021 - Many anti-immigrant policies adopted during the Trump era caused human rights violations against our indigenous brothers and sisters fleeing our ancestral territories due to conditions caused by neoliberal capitalism and free trade agreements. During the Zero Tolerance period, 3,914 families were separated from their children at the border and only 2,031 had been reunited by August 1, 2021. Of these, more than a third are from indigenous families. Additionally, thousands of indigenous women were abused when they arrived at the border and were denied the right to due process of law to present their cases in court.
Despite President Biden’s promises to the contrary, the reality is that the Biden/Harris administration continues the same racist and anti-migrant policies. Title 42, a policy implemented by Trump in March 2020, which blocks many migrants from entering the country under the pretext of preventing the spread of COVID-19, allowed for the quick expulsion of migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum. The Biden/Harris administration continues to exercise this policy, violating the asylum seekers’ human rights. Since its first implementation, more than 940,000 migrants have been swiftly removed. But more than 690,000 of these removals have occurred since Biden took office in January. This is a truly alarming situation since the majority of those expelled are indigenous to our ancestral territories.
Recently revealed images show the US Border Patrol herding Haitian refugees with horses and whipping them with their reins, a truly disturbing display of state violence. Our brothers in Haiti have been seeking refuge from the same devastating effects caused by neoliberalism, free trade agreements, centuries of colonialism which shows to us that the doctrine of discovery is still in force in the hemisphere.
These inhumane acts must no longer occur. As the Social Support Commission of CONPID, we denounce these acts of violence permitted by the Biden/Harris administration and the anti-immigration policy still in effect . We demand the immediate end of the Title 42 policy, and that those guilty of these serious acts of violence face justice.
Social Support Commission, CONPID
CONPID AUTHORITIES
The National Council of Indigenous Peoples is an ancestral entity of indigenous nations and peoples made up of Governments of Indigenous Peoples and Nations, communities, organizations, associations and Indigenous individuals committed to struggle against the conquest and for decolonization and dismantling of The Doctrine of Discovery which was the legal framework for the eurocentric invasion, colonization, plunder and imposition in Abiayala.
