US Envoy to Haiti Resigns Over 'Inhumane' Deportations of Haitian Migrants

The diplomat had for long been frustrated with the lack of action by Washington to improve the lives of Haitians.

Haiti

(Photo: IANS)

Daniel Foote, the United States (US) Special Envoy to Haiti, resigned in protest against the US administration on Thursday, 23 September, over what he called the "inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants," Reuters reported.

According to activists who track deportations enforced by the US administration, four deportation flights were set to leave for Haiti on Thursday.

Foote wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which he said that he was deeply disappointed in the US policy towards Haiti, and that his policy recommendations were being "ignored and dismissed".

The US administration has been under fire since the pictures from this week went viral in which border patrol officers on horseback were seen turning away migrants who were trying to cross the Texas border to get food for their families.

BBC reported that Jen Psaki, the spokeswoman for the White House, said that she had seen the footage and while she did not have the context, she could not "imagine what context would make that appropriate".

Pro-immigration groups and progressive Democrats criticised the US administration's actions, saying that such expulsions are a violation of American principles and everything that the US stands for.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Haitian migrants were being detained in Del Rio, a small town on the border of Texas, and without any prior warnings were being deported to Haiti.

Haiti is still struggling to recover from the powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in mid-August and the assassination of their president Jovenel Moïse in July.

(With inputs from Reuters, BBC, and the New York Times.)