The U.S has a large number of immigrants compared to any other part of the world since many people move there to join their families while others look for better job opportunities. Other immigrants in the U.S seek safety from the wars in their countries and disasters, while others seek better education. The Haitians are among the many immigrants into the U.S who have fled the natural disasters and political instability in their country. The number of Haitian immigrants on the U.S border increases due to their increased urge to get into the U.S. However, the numbers decreased significantly with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Cubans are also among the immigrants to the U.S who migrate in search of a better and more habitable county. There are immigration laws that govern immigrants in the U.S and they have been imposed differently on other people like the Haitians compared to the Cubans thus being unfair.
The government developed some policies to safeguard the immigrants and grant them their immigration wishes, but these policies have become unfair to other immigrants compared to others. One of the ways that Haitian immigrants have been mistreated in the U.S includes their mass expulsion from the U.S that was directed by president Joe Biden (Herrera, 2018). The directive was to eliminate any black Haitians seeking asylum in the U.S, thus leading to their deportation. Despite Biden’s promise to make U.S a better country after being elected, he did not live up to them but instead ordered patrol agents to get rid of any Haitians at the border seeking to get into the country. The non-refoulment law was supposed to protect asylum seekers from being sent back to their countries where it was unsafe for them (Herrera, 2018). However, Biden went against the directive and ordered that the Haitians be sent back to their country despite it being unsafe. His adamancy in deporting the Haitians has gone against the policies created to keep them and many others safe in the U.S
Metering is a practice that the U.S government used to manage many refugees seeking asylum. The practice was mainly targeted at the Haitians, thus making many of them fail to get into the U.S. Once they were rejected, they were expected to register themselves on a list on the Mexican border (Herrera, 2018). Once president trump came into power, he directed that border protection agencies block any Haitians entering the U.S and only use the list to select those allowed to enter. However, the concerned personnel at the border who were supposed to choose the Haitians to join the U.S failed to do their part as expected (Herrera, 2018). They were in no hurry to reduce the number of immigrants at the border, thus causing the numbers to increase. They did not uphold a fair process in selecting the people to get into the U.S, thus leaving the Haitians stranded since they could not get back into their country nor get into the U.S.
The reception that the Haitians got while entering the U.S were not the same as that of the Cubans, as they received colder welcomes compared to the Cubans. The preferential action towards the Cubans could be because the Americans think that the Cubans are more educated than the Haitians. Thus, they can manage themselves better once they are in the U.S. On the other hand, the Haitians are thought to have lower education and may become a burden once they get into the U.S; thus, the different reception. The Americans treat the Cuban immigrants better because they perceive them as better deserving of those chances than the Haitians. Better treatment of Cubans compared to Haitians is because the U.S wants to continue their good relations and political interests. These different treatments have led to various protests that claim that the laws should be the same for all immigrants arriving at the U.S border without any favoritism of one immigrant over another.
Reference
Herrera, G. (2018). From Immigration to transit Migration: Race and Gender Entanglements in new Migration to Ecuador. New Migration Patterns in The Americas, 285-315.