Chris Lange, FISM News
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Haitian migrants are suing the Biden administration for mistreatment, building on the September border patrol “whipping” hoax perpetrated by the White House and illegal immigrant activists. With the help of anti-border groups and their lawyers, 11 Haitian migrants filed the class-action suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking unspecified damages.
The complaint alleges that the Biden administration failed to prepare for the surge of migrants at the southern border in Del Rio, Texas, despite knowing of their imminent arrival. Plaintiffs further accuse the government of being responsible for physical and verbal abuses perpetrated by Border agents and for failing to provide due process and neglecting to meet migrants’ basic needs, in terms of food, shelter, and medical aid.
The asylum seekers are being represented by several immigrant advocacy groups including Justice Action Center, Innovation Law Lab, and Haitian Bridge Alliance.
“The stories I heard coming out of the Del Rio encampment will forever haunt me: mothers with newborns denied basic necessities such as shelter and medical care, children being fed nothing or only bread, and outright derision and discrimination from U.S. authorities,” Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in a joint statement from the organizations. The statement includes a reference to “Atrocious Civil Rights Abuses Against Black Asylum Seekers.”
Lawyers for the migrants also assert that the Haitians were not afforded due process because of the administration’s enforcement of Title 42, which provides for the expulsion of illegal immigrants on the basis of public health concerns.
Earlier this year, an estimated 15,000 Haitian migrants breached the southern border at Del Rio and gathered beneath the Del Rio International Bridge in makeshift encampments. Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas later admitted that as many as 12,000 were released into the U.S.
Photos of a mounted Border Patrol agent appearing to swing his horse reins as he and other agents maneuvered their horses among the migrant crowd led to “whipping” allegations which were subsequently debunked.
Allegations in the lawsuit are no doubt bolstered by remarks made by top U.S. officials, including President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Mayorkas in support of the whipping narrative.
“To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped – it’s outrageous,” Biden said during a Sept. 24 press conference, adding that “those people will pay.”
Vice President Harris echoed his comments in a Sept. 25 appearance on The View, stating, “Human beings should not be treated that way, and as we all know, it also evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history where that kind of behavior has been used against the indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”
Mayorkas, who previously expressed support for Border agents, reversed course at a Sept. 24 press conference, saying “We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”
Executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian in a New York Post op-ed astutely noted that American taxpayers will likely foot a hefty portion of the costs involved in the suit, including any adjudicated monetary remedy or settlement, thanks to strategic language used in the Plaintiffs’ demands in which they seek “costs of suit and reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses” plus “such further relief as the Court deems just, equitable, and proper.”
“In personal injury lawsuits, contingency fees are generally one-third of the amount awarded,” Krikorian explains. “This is a somewhat different case, and no amounts are mentioned in the complaint, but the recent revelation that President Biden’s Justice Department was in settlement talks to give $450,000 per illegal immigrant involved in the ‘zero-tolerance’ separations can give some context.”
He then intimated that anti-immigration lawyers – who stood to reap sizeable profits from such settlements which were abandoned in the face of negative publicity – appear to be using this as a means of pursuing a different avenue of enrichment.
“The anti-borders legal groups in this case, and in all others like it, should be required to disclose what percentage, if any, of a settlement they would get under the retention agreement with their clients. They also should be required to disclose annually how much in legal fees they have received from lawsuits against the government…American taxpayers should at least know how much they’re having to pay to see their borders subverted.”