June 20, 2025

Contact: media@haitianbridge.org

SAN DIEGO, CA — On World Refugee Day, Haitian Bridge Alliance honors the strength, dignity, and resilience of the more than 100 million people around the globe who have been forcibly displaced . As an organization rooted in the defense of Black migrants’ rights, we use this day to shine a light on the systemic injustices and racial disparities that continue to shape immigration policies—especially in the United States.

“World Refugee Day is not only a time to recognize the courage of those seeking safety, but also a moment to confront the racial hypocrisy embedded in our global asylum systems,” said Guerline Jozef, Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “It is deeply troubling that in the United States, we have seen asylum virtually dismantled for Black and Brown refugees from Haiti, Cameroon, Venezuela, and across the Global South—while at the same time, white South Africans are being welcomed under the false pretense of a so-called genocide. This is not immigration policy. It is white supremacist statecraft.”

Under the Trump administration, sweeping asylum bans , and cruel deterrence strategies have criminalized people of African, Caribbean, and Latin American descent who are fleeing political instability, gang violence, and climate disasters. Meanwhile, right-wing narratives have manufactured a crisis in South Africa  to justify importing white South African families as so-called “refugees,” despite no credible evidence of genocide.

ABOUT HAITIAN BRIDGE ALLIANCE

Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), also known as “The Bridge”, is a grassroots community organization that advocates for fair and humane immigration policies, foreign policy, and provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian, legal, and social services, with a particular focus on Black migrants, the Haitian community, women and girls, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and survivors of torture and other human rights abuses. HBA also seeks to elevate the issues unique to Black migrants and builds solidarity and collective movement toward policy change. Anpil men chay pa lou (“Many hands make the load light”). Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook: @haitianbridge