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Proponents call for a double standard for black and brown migrants against Ukrainian refugees

With more than 4.9 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration announced in late March that it would accept 100,000 people fleeing the conflict to the United States.

While pro-immigration activists usually welcome such a statement, some criticize what they see as a double standard applied at the southern border, which favors Ukrainian refugees over black and brown migrants who are already waiting. In March, more than 3,000 Ukrainian refugees were processed at the US-Mexico border, while refugees from other countries waited months – and in some cases years – to seek asylum.

“This is very different from the treatment received by mostly black and brown refugees in the last two years, while the border is closed to all asylum seekers due to a law known as Title 42, which is charged as a public health measure needed to protect the U.S. public from rising levels of COVID in the world, but it really works to protect blacks and brown asylum seekers, ”said Nicole Ramos, director of the Border Rights Project at Al Otro Lado, a legal services organization, told Yahoo News.

Families of immigrants from Haiti and Brazil detained by US border agent in Yuma, Arizona (John Moore / Getty Images)

Title 42 is a Trump-era immigration policy that allows U.S. customs and border guards to ban asylum seekers who pose a potential health risk. It was adopted in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a backlog of asylum cases at the border. It is expected to be lifted by the end of May.

Ramos said thousands of migrants fleeing Central America, Mexico, Africa and Haiti are also avoiding drug wars, prosecutions and corruption. “There are many types of wars that other refugees are fleeing. But these wars are not considered worthy of response. “We have thousands of families fleeing the southern state of Michoacan in Mexico, where the government is literally at war with drug cartels,” Ramos said.

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In an interview with CBS Evening News, Interior Minister Alejandro Mayorkas said there is no double standard that applies to Ukrainian refugees, although thousands of migrants from other countries are also waiting at the border.

“What we do on an individual basis is to assess whether a Ukrainian family and, frankly, other families from other countries meet the requirements of our discretion to grant humanitarian parole. Do they present us with an urgent humanitarian situation that requires special treatment? And this is not specific to Ukrainians. We apply this everywhere, “Mallorca told Nora O’Donnell of CBS News last week.

Haitian immigrant Francel Celestine. (Courtesy of Francel Celestine)

According to border officials, there are approximately 170,000 migrants waiting to seek asylum in the United States. Thousands of migrants had to wait more than two years in poor conditions in border towns across the southern border due to Title 42.

Ramos said refugees from Haiti and other countries fall entirely within the protection afforded by US asylum law, but have been denied access to justice. Those who have been waiting for months for their cases to be processed are often as desperately in need of humanitarian assistance as refugees from Ukraine.

Francel Celestine is an immigrant from Haiti who, along with his wife and three children, is awaiting asylum in Tijuana, Mexico. They are fleeing Haiti’s political crisis, economic instability, climate catastrophes and the July 7, 2021 assassination of President Yovenel Mois. Celestine said his family has yet to recover from the country’s 2010 earthquake. with a magnitude of 7.0, which reportedly killed 220,000 people.

Celestine told Yahoo News that he had been targeted by the Haitian government for joining an opposition party, which left his family with no choice but to pack their bags and begin the journey to the southern border of the United States. He said he feared reprisals if he was forced to return home.

“People don’t have faith right now. People do not have stability. You can’t even go out because there are too many kidnappings. Criminals do what they want; the cops can’t control them. There is no president because he was killed. So at the moment we don’t even have a governor. This is a country where people do what they want. This is pure corruption, “Celestine said in Spanish.

Like many Haitian migrants, he is unsure of what to prioritize that could potentially be given to Ukrainian refugees.

“I feel small for me. I feel small because we come from the Caribbean and they come from Europe. They left because of the war in their country, but this is their war. But we also left because of the war – because in our country children cannot walk alone and we cannot live a dignified life for our children, “Celestine said.

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What happened last week in Ukraine? Check out this explanation from Yahoo Immersive to find out.