 Nation lives matter. Nation lives matter. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. Immigrants are welcome here. This is Julia. I'm just going to give a speech to start off the evening, so please give it up for her. Woo! Everyone can hear me? Yeah. Nice. Okay. So, I am going to start with a little bit of historical context because as usual, history leads us to the current day. So, there are two points that are really important to understand the context of the current Haitian immigration crisis. The first is that the United States has a long history of meddling in Haiti. That's right. And the second is that U.S. meddling has directly caused much of the national instability and gang violence faced by Haitian people today. Is that? While Haiti has done much to help the United States over the years, the United States has worked to undermine Haiti since it was officially recognized as a nation in 1804. The U.S. partook in an embargo with France, which devastated the export-driven economy of the new nation. Hold on. Yeah, okay. The U.S. occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 under the guise of restoring democracy following the assassination of Haiti's president. In reality, the U.S. wanted to utilize Haiti as a strategic location, preventing the perceived threat of Germany doing the same thing and exploiting Haiti's agricultural lands, forests, resources, and the Haitian workforce. This led to land theft from over 40,000 Haitians as the U.S. aggregated land for agribusiness ventures, caused the largest deforestation event in Haitian history, and the U.S. created and trained the modern Haitian police and military force, who were then used by the United States and then the Duvalier dictators to murder thousands. In 1991, following the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, the first truly democratically elected president of Haiti, Aristide, was ousted from power by Haitian elites, the corrupt military and political officials that were in power under the Duvaliers, and all of this was backed by the U.S. CIA. This threw the country into turmoil in a time when Haiti finally had a president who was there for the people. Haitian immigration to the U.S. began in earnest in 1965, following the Heart Seller Immigration Act, which abolished racist national origin quotas, which had been part of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s. Following the violence and instability in Haiti after Aristide was ousted, immigration to the U.S. spiked, which is what caused the Clinton administration to reinstate Aristide to the presidency, albeit with neoliberal clauses that prohibited the structural reforms Aristide wanted to implement, and furthered U.S. economic gains in Haiti. Haitian migration again spiked in 2010, following the horrific earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitian citizens. Many refugees went to Brazil and then Chile, but conditions in both countries worsened for Haitian immigrants over time, causing tens of thousands to begin the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. Haitian people have continued to seek asylum in the U.S. and other countries since 2010, as Haiti has faced more ecological and political crises, including the appointment of the recently assassinated dictator, Joe Benel Moise, put in power by the Obama administration. Just tell me how someone with no political experience wins an election with 500,000 votes in a country of over 12 million people. He doesn't. He gets put in power. Exactly. That's right. Many Haitian asylum seekers have been stuck at the border for years, awaiting a decision, stuck in dangerous border towns in Mexico that are flooded with guns from the United States, that are smuggled into Mexico, and should not be contained. Trump invoked Title 42 during COVID prohibiting asylum seekers from even entering the country. Biden has kept this in place and has deported more Haitian citizens since the start of 2021 than Trump did in the entire fiscal year of 2020. There have been over 37 deportation flights under Biden, not including flights that contained over 2,000 people from the Del Rio camp. So that is a little bit of context to kind of kick us off, and I'm going to hand over the mic now. Give it up for Julia. Thank you so much. Context not just historically, but also right now. There are dozens of similar events being held across the country in cities all over America. So give it up for yourself for being a part of this. Thanks so much. I'm coming from Haiti. Be sure to share with you guys. I am tired. I am sick and tired of the United States crying for Haiti in every single way that they can. And I refuse to accept it. I can't even stand up and speak the truth publicly in Haiti because speaking the truth will likely put a target on my head and I might end up with a bullet in my head the next day. Bullets from guns that are provided to Haiti by the United States. That's right. Haiti does not produce guns or bullets for that matter. Even our bordering country, the Dominican Republic, produces these types of automatic weapons used by gangs in Haiti. The access to these evil guns have increased extreme gang violence, kidnapping, insecurity in Haiti, causing everybody's lives to be at risk every day. About 15 people are kidnapped or killed by gangs every day. If the president of Haiti is able to be assassinated in the middle of the night in Haiti, it's for anybody to be completely and I am very emotionally attached to my country. Everybody in Haiti has a target on their head and my parents are worried that I might be a victim. This is another reason why the Biden administration needs to keep people left Haiti several years because Haiti hasn't fully recovered from the magnitude 7 earthquake in 2010 and they don't even have anything to go back to at home. Especially after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake a month ago on August 14, 2021 can't speak for themselves because they took their voices away on the outside because they can't speak for themselves on the inside. That's right. In other words, there's a little QR code. You can send a letter to Vermont politicians or share with them these demands. Number one, stop racist treatment of Haitian migrants on the country. Dismantle DHS, an ICE data facility that upholds the biased surveillance state of immigration. Justice is an organization that is created and led by the migrant community that fights for human rights. We are here in solidarity with the Haitian community because we identify with them because of the fact of being migrants and having to leave our countries and get to a country where we are not welcome and sometimes having to suffer racism and live all the time with fear of being deported. And that's not fair. We deserve a different life. Also the Haitian community because they also deserve respect, dignity and the opportunity to have a better life. That's right. To translate. Hello, my name is Rosie Alvaro. I'm part of the organization Migrant Justice. Migrant Justice is an organization that was created and is led by the migrant community that fights for human rights. We are here in solidarity with the Haitian community because we identify with them for the fact that we are also migrants and that we have had to leave our home country and come to a country where we are not welcome and sometimes we face racism here and we have to live all the time with the fear of being deported. We know that this isn't right. This isn't just. We deserve a different life and also the Haitian community deserves respect and dignity and the opportunity to have a better life. I'm sure you share with me a sense of horror about what the Biden administration did at the U.S.-Mexico border in Del Rio, Texas. He committed a crime against humanity. He unleashed border patrol and ICE to clear out the camp and I don't think we've seen scenes like this even under the Trump administration of border patrol acting like a slave catcher whipping and beating and driving Haitian migrants across the border back into Mexico. The shocking thing is that Biden had the gall to criticize the border patrol that he ordered to do exactly what they did. This is what ICE and border patrol do on the U.S.-Mexico border. This is what ICE and border patrol do on the Vermont-Quebec border. This is what ICE does across the country. You cannot criticize the behavior of the agents you order to commit crimes against humanity. The guilt lies with the Biden administration. 16,000 people driving most of them back into Mexico where conditions are just as bad, if not worse, for the Haitian migrants. The Mexican police are terrorizing the Haitian migrants just like the U.S. police, ICE and border patrol were terrorizing Haitian migrants on the U.S. side of the border. And Biden has ordered the Mexican state to deploy its police and military to its southern border to back block the passage of thousands of more Haitians coming to the United States. And the question is, why are these people fleeing? Why are they coming from Haiti? Why are they coming from all over Latin America? And the reality is you have to look for the fault, not in those countries but right here in the United States and not only in this country but here in the state of Vermont. Washington has backed coups in Haiti, blocked social reform and set the country up to be unable to withstand to the natural disasters, the earthquakes and hurricanes that have ravaged the country. The fault for those natural disasters is actually in Washington. It's not really in nature itself because the state was unable to respond to the human crisis. They didn't have social reforms enabled to improve people's lives. So those natural disasters became unnatural ones wrought by U.S. imperialism. And those same forces are what are driving Haitians from Latin America, devastated economies, coups and right-wing governments backed by the United States and an economic catastrophe in part caused by the pandemic and made worse by the fact that the U.S. government is hoarding vaccinations from third world countries, especially in Latin America. As a result, the economic conditions are worse there. That's why Haitians are coming to the U.S.-Mexico border trying to find asylum. And instead of giving them asylum, which is an internationally recognized human right, the Biden administration used Trump's Title 42 to shut down the border and unleash these boons against the Haitian migrants. So in that context, we demand stop the racist treatment of Haitian migrants. Stop all deportations. End the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border and the U.S.-Vermont border with Quebec, the patrol, ICE and DHS. Open the borders. Let every human being in. And this is particularly important in Vermont because a lot of people don't know about it, but the data facility that ICE has out in Williston is the National Nerve Center for all the monitoring and collection of data on undocumented migrants from all across the country. And the person who brought it here is up in that office, Patrick Leahy. So contrary to the illusion that we have a wonderful liberal delegation, Patrick Leahy is responsible for some of those atrocities that are happening. That's why everybody should join us in demanding that Leahy, Sanders and Welch and all the politicians in the state support the demands of this protest. We have to recognize we have reparations to pay to Haiti and Haitians from the U.S. government and from the Vermont government. They deserve nothing less. So I'll just conclude by saying if you want to continue this struggle, get involved up at campus and if you're in the community, come to the Next Community Voices for Immigrant Rights meeting where we'll talk about where we go from here and building a movement that will stand up and say, no human being is illegal. Haitian lives matter. Haitian lives matter. Haitian lives matter. Haitian lives matter. Haitian lives matter. Give it up for Ashley. The leakers currently stuck under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas. These migrants have been forced to wait and make shift camps after further petitions to be processed with little food, water, medicine, or shelter from the elements. They've also endured anti-black violence at the hands of customs and border patrol with reported shouts of go back to Mexico coming from the officers themselves. Despite many of the migrants originating from Haiti, further adding to the erasure of black immigrants in the discussion around immigration. And may the administration rule that people coming from the U.S., coming to the U.S. from Haiti would be granted TPS designation due to the ongoing political unrest and climate disasters. We know these crises are rooted in U.S. imperialism and Western colonization. Instead of receiving them with dignity, 86 people and there are more flights scheduled to depart this week. The deportation flights must end. Petroleum patrol must be demilitarized. And these migrants must be allowed in. They should be allowed to petition for asylum for the violence they are fleeing. We reaffirm our position that ICE and CPB served no purpose other than to enact racist violence in the name of xenophobic policies designated to force people from the global south into permanently maintained, exploitable underclasses. We call for these policies and agencies that enforce them to be defunded, disarmed, and dismantled. Time and time again the U.S. has shown its disregard for these humans for the humane treatment of asylum seekers and migrants. And with the reconciliation bill passed this week with no clear path of citizenship for these people it's important that we get organized in our community. Hit all the same demands that we talked about earlier. You need to get the ICE data center and get out of here. We need to pressure Leahy. And if you're a student that wants to get involved come talk to us. The Young Democratic Socialist of America at UVM. Thank you very much. I just want to make one point here crystal clear. I'm Chilean. I'm from Latin America. I have a deep connection to the global south. And I am very aware of the way that the United States and other colonial states exploit the global south. The main purpose of military intervention in Latin America, CIA intervention in Latin America is to exploit natural resources and cheap labor. That's why we're there. That's why we were there for Operation Condor. That's why we're trying to send all these migrants back now. It's for exploitation for the shareholders in Chile. We say que muevan las industrias, that the industries may move. Leahy is a con in a machine. And that machine continues to exploit Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, all the global south for its nefarious purposes. So I wanted to make that absolutely clear that we're here fighting a machine, not specific policies, not one action, one horrible atrocity by certain ICE agents, but the whole entire system needs to come down. Thank you. The next speaker is Jess. Hopefully I'll keep it close and we'll stick. I organize from time to time with community voices for immigrant rights, and I really respect this consistent presence here in the community in Burlington and beyond across the state, continuing to raise these issues and work in coalition with a lot of different groups. And back in March, we had a honk protest. And when what was happening on the border started to unfold last week, I didn't have the emotional capacity or the mental capacity to think about action. And that's why these consistent groups and community are so important. There are people who come together who talk regularly about what's happening for immigrants in our communities and that they're ready to take action. And so I get to just speak here today for a little bit about what I think about what's happening on the border and why we all need to be more engaged in this fight. I think a lot of the conversation in the past two weeks has focused on the conditions in Haiti, conditions that have been created and perpetuated by the U.S. government, conditions in Chile and Brazil that have also been perpetuated by the U.S. government. And I can definitely add plenty of imagery to that conversation. I lived in Haiti at the height of the migration to South America, and I can tell you that today in Haiti, the situation is much more dire. Economically, human rights violations, rampant gang violence and kidnappings, and the earthquake in the southern peninsula where aid is being blocked by gangs to get to people who are in need. So yes, the situation in Haiti is dire, but we need to change our rhetoric around immigration from just focusing on the situation that we are deporting people to and not actually asking ourselves why we are not granting asylum to folks. Why our systems aren't working. Why the Biden and Harris administration haven't rebuilt U.S. immigration, and I hope everyone here is clear that immigration in the U.S. has always been racist. That's right. It is why we cannot have our police collaborating with ICE because they use racial profiling to target our community members and our neighbors. So what's happening on the border is really an exposure of what has always been true about the U.S. immigration system. And the situation that they are deporting people back into in Haiti is deplorable, but what we have to focus on as U.S. residents and citizens is actually holding our elected officials accountable. We have to say no to people who are running their political campaigns on making immigration more humane while maintaining camps on the border, while militarizing the border patrol, and the city of Del Rio used their police department and neighboring cities departments to reinforce a wall to ensure that if any of the border patrol, and if anyone got past the border patrol, they wouldn't get into their cities. We have to abolish the police. We have to abolish ICE, attention of people in our country. That's right. Because we know that in all of these institutions, they are wrong from the start, and we know that they are constantly employed against people of color and black people disproportionately. That's right. So I'm standing here because I think that we all have to remember when these crises happen that it isn't just about painting a picture of these other countries that have been controlled by the U.S. and completely dismantled by the U.S. We have to shine the mirror. We have to face the mirror back to ourselves and to our institutions. And here in Vermont, in Williston, housing the DHS, like, nerve center for data is deplorable. That's right. Late, he brought the F-35s here. He brought that here, and we have to be willing to do what it takes to escalate the conversation, to force him and Sanders and Welch to stand up for immigrant rights and to stand up for black immigrants. I've been thinking a lot about that as I hear all the reports is how often we focus on women and children. We focus on the fact that people aren't criminals. Well, our society has decided to criminalize being black and brown since its foundation. So if we're going to base our immigration and our progressive values off of people not being criminals, then we aren't recognizing the system that is disproportionately going to seek out and find black and brown migrants across this country to deport. We have to change our focus, not because women and children don't matter, but because every migrant matters. It's not because we're going to pay taxes here. It's not because they have schoolchildren that are vulnerable. It's because they are humans. And we have to remember their humanity and anything that we have to say. All migrants matter. Okay. She's asked me to do that. So just the specific things, everybody got a flyer tonight. They're politicians in the state. Our congressional delegation, local politicians, state representatives. So we encourage you all to do that. There are several students from UVM. If you're an unorganized UVM student, please come and talk to Miguel. Raise your hand where... Miguel and the YDSA crew over here, Trey. Come talk to them. And again, people in the community, we encourage you to come to the Community Voices for Immigrant Rights meeting, which will be a week from this Thursday at six o'clock. We'll post it on our Facebook page. Yes, we use Facebook still. So check that out and come to the meeting. And we're going to talk there about how we can escalate the struggle because this is not over. Tens of thousands of Haitians are still in Mexico. More are coming up from Latin America and they're being blocked at the borders. So this crisis is not over, despite what the media says. So we have to figure out what our response is and how we can escalate the pressure on our politicians to do something to let people in and let them stay in the U.S. regardless of their nationality. So we encourage you to come to that meeting and we'll talk about future actions that we can plan further teachings and more demonstrations to put up the pressure so that all lives matter, especially Black lives, especially Haitian lives because nobody's life matter until Haitian Black lives matter along with everybody else. So let's stand up, unite and fight together so that everybody has equal rights and justice in this country and around the world.