NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – Members of the National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network met on Tuesday in Miami-Dade County to announce they will continue to send requests to the President Joe Biden administration to halt deportations of Haitian migrants.
Florida House Rep. Marie Woodson, a member of the national organization, said the disbanded encampment at Del Rio, Texas, is one of the many signs of the mass migration of Haitians after the president’s assassination in July and the earthquake in August.
“They are human beings. They need to be treated with the respect and the dignity they deserve ... They are fighting for their lives. They are fighting for survival,” Woodson said.
Florida House Rep. Dotie Joseph said they want to meet with Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss his administration’s use of former President Donald Trump’s “harmful” Title 42, a clause of the 1944 Public Health Services Law, which the organization believes is a violation of the U.S. asylum laws.
Joseph said The U.S. Department of Homeland Security used Title 42 to expel nearly 4,000 Haitian migrants in nine days after the encampment in Del Rio, Texas. For more information about the effort, visit the nonprofit organization’s page.