U.S. envoy resigns over expulsions to Haiti from Texas camp (updated)
23/09/2021 14:12
(Recasts with Special Envoy resigning)
By Daina Beth Solomon
CIUDAD ACUNA, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. envoy to Haiti
dramatically resigned on Thursday in a letter that excoriated
Washington for deporting hundreds of migrants to the
crisis-engulfed Caribbean nation from a border camp in recent
days.
The resignation was confirmed by a senior official at the
U.S. State Department. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nW1N2Q100Q
"I will not be associated with the United States' inhumane,
counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian
refugees and illegal immigrants," Daniel Foote said in a letter
addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that circulated
publicly on Thursday.
Foote, a career diplomat named in July as special envoy to
Haiti, said conditions in the country were so bad that U.S.
officials were confined to secure compounds. He said the
"collapsed state" was unable to support the infusion of
returning migrants.
His resignation follows growing pressure on the
administration of U.S. President Joe Biden from the United
Nations and fellow Democrats over the treatment of Haitians in a
migrant camp in Texas near the Mexican border.
As many as 14,000 people gathered in the camp last week,
with the population now reduced to less than half by expulsion
flights and detentions. Others have left the dusty riverbank for
Mexico to avoid being sent home.
Images of U.S. border guards on horseback using long reins
to whip at Black asylum seekers at the weekend caused outrage
within the White House and from rights groups.
The United States has returned 1,401 migrants from the camp
at Del Rio, Texas, to Haiti and taken another 3,206 people into
custody, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on
Wednesday.
Wade McMullen, an attorney with the Robert F. Kennedy Human
Rights organization, said several hundred people, mostly
pregnant women and parents with children, had been released in
Del Rio, Texas, over the past several days.
The deportations came amid profound instability in the
Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, where a
presidential assassination, gang violence and a major earthquake
have spread chaos in recent weeks.
Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N refugee agency, warned
that the U.S. expulsions to Haiti might violate international
law.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Ciudad Acuna, Additional
reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Kristina Cooke, Editing by Laura
Gottesdiener and Nick Zieminski)
((daina.solomon@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 5282 7150;))