The Impact of U.S. Immigration and Border Externalization Policies on Haitian and Other Black Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Migrants
- The January 2025 US border closure policies, suspending asylum processing, terminating the CBP One appointment system and ending humanitarian parole, effectively eliminated access to protection at the southern border, in what the authors argue is a violation of the Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture and US law.
- Among Haitian survey respondents in Mexico City, 81 percent had registered for CBP One, 57 percent never obtained an appointment and 24 percent had appointments cancelled on 20 January 2025, after waits often exceeding nine months.
- Haitians in Mexico face discriminatory rents, denial of medical care without papers, kidnapping and extortion, with Haitians reportedly extorted at higher rates than any other group in 2024 and some paying up to 16,000 dollars to smugglers.
- The submission recalls that in May 2022 Haitians were 6 percent of border crossers but 60 percent of those on Title 42 expulsion flights, and recommends restoring asylum access, ending externalization and strengthening non-refoulement safeguards.
This April 2025 submission to the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of the United States, led by the Haiti Justice Partnership with Al Otro Lado, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Human Rights First and UndocuBlack Network, and endorsed by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and others, analyzes the impact of US immigration and border externalization policies on Haitian and other Black migrants. It traces the policy record from metering, the Migrant Protection Protocols, Title 42 and asylum bans to the January 2025 border closure measures that suspended asylum processing, terminated the CBP One appointment system and ended humanitarian parole, arguing these violate the Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture and non-refoulement obligations.
Drawing on 102 survey responses and over fifty interviews with Haitian migrants in Mexico City in early 2025, it documents cancelled appointments, lost savings, discriminatory rents, denial of medical care, kidnapping and extortion, and barriers to Mexico's COMAR asylum system. It also reviews the shortening and attempted termination of TPS for Haiti and the CHNV parole cutoff, and recommends restoring asylum access, ending externalization and strengthening non-refoulement protections.
How to cite
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), 2025, The Impact of U.S. Immigration and Border Externalization Policies on Haitian and Other Black Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Migrants, https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/impact-us-immigration-and-border-externalization-policies-haitian-and-other-black-refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants