The Impact of U.S. Immigration and Border Externalization Policies on Haitian and Other Black Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Migrants

I. Executive Summary

1. Immediately after taking office, President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders and proclamations that suspended access to asylum and deployed the military to the U.S.-Mexico border, terminated humanitarian parole programs, and threatened tariffs on Mexico. New U.S. policies violate international and domestic law and have a devastating effect on Haitian and other Black refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants (referred to collectively as “migrants” throughout). By suspending asylum processing at the southern border, the U.S. government has denied migrants the right to seek asylum, which is enshrined in international and domestic frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Refugee Convention and Protocol (“Refugee Convention,” collectively), and the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980. Most concerningly, U.S. policies violate non-refoulement obligations under the Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and U.S. law by returning asylum-seekers to their home countries and other countries where they face persecution, torture or other threats to their life or freedom.

2. As seeking asylum in the United States is cut off, many migrants who would face harm if they returned to their country of origin have no choice but to seek protection in Mexico instead. However, Black migrants in particular face violence, discrimination, extortion, significant hurdles to refugee or other legal status, and many other vulnerabilities in Mexico. As such, many Haitians never intended to live in Mexico and many feel unsafe there and are therefore especially impacted by the closure of the border due to racial discrimination and cultural and language barriers.

3. This report contains information gathered from archival research, such as recent reports of violence and exploitation faced by migrants prepared by Human Rights First. It also includes primary data collected by Al Otro Lado (AOL) from 102 survey responses from Haitian migrants and their families from February through early April 2025 in Mexico City, as well as analysis from over fifty interviews with Haitian migrants in Mexico City in March 2025, conducted by the Haiti Justice Partnership (HJP) in collaboration with AOL, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), and the UndocuBlack Network (collectively, “the delegation”).

4. By systematically denying migrants the right to seek asylum, the United States externalizes its border into Mexico and attempts to evade international and domestic prohibitions against refoulement by returning them to a territory where they would face torture; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and other irreparable harm, whether in Mexico or their home country as a result of Mexico’s inability to provide protection. Forcing individuals seeking asylum to wait in Mexico and pressuring Mexican officials to assist with keeping migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border exacerbates an already precarious situation for Haitian and other Black migrants in the country. The U.S. government’s actions violate its legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) among other international norms including state commitments to cooperate in their protection of migrants globally and in this hemisphere.

5. We urge the United States to immediately (a) restore access to asylum, (b) end its border externalization policies, (c) strengthen non-refoulement protections, and (d) work in collaboration with Mexico to improve access to legal status documentation, shelter and housing protections, medical services, and protection from violence for Haitian and other Black migrants in Mexico.