A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against the U.S. government on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, by a group of 11 Haitian migrants after their experience at the Texas border.
Plaintiffs are represented by several immigrant advocacy groups including Justice Action Center, Haitian Bridge Alliance as well as the Innovation Law Lab.
Their lawsuit includes migrants’ interactions with Border Patrol agents on horseback in Del Rio shown in now-infamous photos as well as a statement from one of the plaintiffs, Mirard Joseph, who claims he was lashed at by by one of those agents.
Joseph’s unpleasant experience was documented in a photo that has enticed much criticism, including from President Biden, who said it’s outrageous that people were treated like that and promised that “those people will pay.”
Joseph called the encounter the most humiliating experience of his life and noted there was a second such moment following the border incident in which he was handcuffed, chained, and returned to Haiti.
The Biden administration is specifically accused in the lawsuit of failing to prepare for the migrant influx despite being aware of their imminent arrival. The plaintiffs are holding the administration responsible for the physical and verbal abuse the migrants went through as well as for failing to provide due process because of COVID-19 policies.
One of those policies included Title 42, which allows the expulsion of people for public health reasons.
Haitian Bridge Alliance’s co-founder and executive director Guerline Jozef says she’ll be haunted forever by the stories she heard of the Del Rio encampment where children were being fed nothing or only bread and mothers with newborns were denied shelter and medical care.
No matter the outcome of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ statements of the lawsuit could also become part of the ongoing investigation of the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility that probes Border Patrol’s treatment of the migrants.
Many of the estimated 15,000 Haitian migrants who had gathered under the Del Rio International Bridge earlier this year were returned to their home country on controversial repatriation flights.
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