The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“The images left many sickened and outraged: Border Patrol agents on horseback hounding Haitian migrants near the US-Mexico border, more than 14.000 of whom were camped under the Del Rio bridge on September 19. The uniformed men swung their long horse reins — which many interpreted as whips — to keep the migrants from crossing into Texas. In one photo, an agent grabbed the T-shirt of a migrant, while another shouted in a video, “Get out now! Back to Mexico!”
“Condemnation of the agents’ behavior was swift, with advocates drawing parallels to slave patrols, or the white men on horses who whipped enslaved people in cotton fields. But inhumane treatment of Black migrants, particularly Haitian migrants, is not new; it’s closely linked to the history of immigrant detention in the United States. . . .
“The current wave of Haitian migrants is fleeing a country that has experienced compounding crises. This summer, Haiti suffered a magnitude 7.2 earthquake and tropical storm that killed an estimated 2,200, with thousands more missing or injured. The July assassination of President Jovenel Moïse worsened violence and instability.
“Haitians are still reeling from the January 2010 earthquake that affected 3 million people, causing irreparable damage to homes and infrastructure. Gangs have since risen in power, leading many Haitians to live in fear for their lives and families.
“As [Professor Carl] Lindskoog says, what Haitians are experiencing is the kind of calamity that asylum was designed for in the period following World War II: “It is their legal right to seek asylum. [Current policy] underscores the United States’ longstanding animus toward Black migrants. . . .”—Why America Keeps Turning Its Back on Haitian Migrants, Fabiola Cineas, Vox, 9/24/21 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Here’s an immigration advocate who lets her imagination run wild–as such people in the media typically do. What happened at the border was a group of mounted Border Patrol agents doing their jobs—keeping out foreigners who had no respect for our country’s laws. An officer grabbing one by the t-shirt and another yelling “Get out now! Back to Mexico” don’t come anywhere close to “inhumane treatment.” Yet in Cineas’ fervid illusions, the agents are on “slave patrol,” and their horse reins are “whips.” Mass immigration advocates seldom miss an opportunity to interpret reality through the lens of their racial obsessions.
Haiti isn’t a pleasant place to live, but its poverty and misgovernment are not legal grounds for claiming asylum—despite the statement of the professor cited in the article. Asylum requires “a well-founded fear” of persecution because of such factors as politics, ethnicity, and religion. Not many Haitians qualify on this basis. Consequently, the reason they don’t get amnesty is not their race, but their lack of legitimate standing. Significantly, many if not most of the Haitian migrants who recently entered the U.S. did not come directly from Haiti. They previously had moved to Chile and Brazil where they faced no persecution and often were doing well economically. Thus they had even less claim to asylum than people coming directly from Haiti.
Mass immigration advocates argue for expanding the qualifications for asylum to include poverty. Ever indifferent to reality, they seem to think that America can become the savior and haven of all the poor people of the entire world. Every year world population grows by close to 80 million people, and most of that increase is in poor countries. Could we possibly accept this overflow for any length of time without being overwhelmed? The answer should be obvious.