Customs and Border Patrol agents at the US border are using whips to strike at Haitian refugees, including families with children.1
For too long CBP, as well as ICE, have abused their powers to target, spy on, physically harm, and de-humanize immigrant communities. This must stop now.
Heads need to roll for this. Refugees fleeing a devastating earthquake and a presidential assassination are being met at the US border with whips on horseback from CBP agents.
This entire agency needs to be overhauled. That includes resignations, firings, re-allocating resources, substantial reforms to codes of conduct and disciplinary actions for agents who brutally de-humanize immigrants. And we need to support and welcome refugees, rather than beat or deport them.
Sign the petition: Tell Congress and President Biden to overhaul the CBP!
Haiti won its independence through a revolt against slavery. After earning their freedom, the whip -- a symbol of slave owner oppression -- was banned.2 Now Haitian refugees at the US border are being whipped by CBP agents on horseback, as a prelude to deportation, rather than being welcomed as refugees.
As horrific as this is, these actions are just the latest in a long history of CBP violating the human rights of refugees and immigrants.
It was only a few years ago the CBP and ICE ripped children from the families at the border during the Trump administration. Shockingly, CBP is still housing children in cages at the border during the pandemic.
But the systemic violence doesn’t stop there. CBP has spied on immigrant communities, used drones to surveil Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd, and was recently caught bypassing 4th Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure by buying individual’s real-time location.
The CBP cannot continue operations as usual after using whips on Haitian refugees at the border.
Sign the petition: Tell the President and Congress to overhaul the CBP and welcome refugees!
Sources:
1. Vice, “US Border Agents Are Removing Haitian Migrants Using Horses and Whips,” September 20, 2021.
2. Leyburn, James (1961). The Haitian People. Yale University Press.