The White House is defending its handling of a border crisis involving thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants sheltering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, arguing against charges of unfair treatment and selective application of immigration laws.
“We are continuing to expel people coming from a range of countries,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday. “Our border restrictions are being applied not just to Haitians, but to people who are coming irregularly to migrate to the country from anywhere … we are applying immigration laws.”
Most of the Haitians who have gathered in the area traveled from countries in Central and South America, complicating their eligibility for humanitarian assistance inside the United States. Deportation flights to Haiti have repatriated more than 1,400 people since Sept. 19, Psaki said.
The Biden administration is “making clear that people who are coming through irregular migration, that this is not the time to come, and they will be placed in removal proceedings,” she added. “There certainly is not an open border.”
In response to pushback over pictures of Border Patrol agents on horseback rounding up migrants, Psaki said that Customs and Border Protection would “no longer” be using horses in Del Rio.
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The deportations have drawn outcry from numerous Democrats. Haiti is still reeling from an earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people and injured thousands more, as well as the assassination of its late President Jovenel Moise in July.
In a letter to the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services last week, more than 50 Democratic lawmakers called for “indefinitely halting” deportations to Haiti.
However, some migrants have been released into the interior after processing by border officials. Psaki called this an “alternative to detention.”
And on Wednesday, Biden’s point person to Haiti resigned in a letter that voiced similar concerns about the instability inside the country.
Former Haiti special envoy Daniel Foote criticized the administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive” deportations in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. Foote was appointed less than two months ago.
Responding to the charge, Psaki argued that the former diplomat had opportunities to share his concerns “in a range of meetings.”
“Special envoy Foote had ample opportunity to raise concerns about migration … He never once did so,” she said.
Foote further alleged that his recommendations were “ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”
In a statement, State Department spokesman Ned Price pushed back on the assertion, arguing Foote “mischaracterized the circumstances of his resignation.”
“No ideas are ignored, but not all ideas are good ideas,“ Price said.
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Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Foote had advised sending troops to Haiti to secure the country after the assassination of former President Moise in July.
“Sending the U.S. military into Haiti is not the answer that will solve the terrible situation that the Haitian people are currently facing,” Sherman told the Miami Herald. “It just was a bad idea.”
