National Urban League Condemns Inhumane Treatment of Haitian Asylum-Seekers, Calls for Dismissal of Abusive Border Patrol Agents
NEW YORK (September 21, 2021) -- National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial today condemned the brutal and racially-motivated abuse of Haitian migrants by Border Patrol agents along the Rio Grande.
“The abhorrent images of agents on horseback terrorizing asylum-seekers, using reins as whips, recall the horror of 18th and 19th-century slave patrols,” Morial said. “Such gratuitous cruelty violates not only U.S. laws and policies, but also basic human decency. These men, women and children fleeing violence, persecution, and extreme poverty have every right to expect due process and humane treatment. We have failed them, and we have failed ourselves.”
The National Urban League has joined other civil rights and social justice organizations in demanding an immediate investigation of the Border Patrol in Del Rio, dismissal of the agents involved in the abuse, and a halt to the mass deportation of Haitian migrants.