The American special envoy to Haiti has resigned in protest at the “inhumane” deportation of hundreds of Haitian migrants back to their country from a camp on the US-Mexican border.
Daniel Foote said that conditions in the Caribbean nation were so bad that US officials were confined to secure compounds because of the danger of armed gangs, and the “collapsed state” could not support the number of returning migrants.
Mr Foote claimed the US approach was “flawed” and his resignation follows growing pressure on the Biden administration from fellow Democrats and the UN over the treatment of Haitians in the sprawling impromptu camp near the town of Del Rio, Texas.
In both footage and photos, agents were shown confronting migrants near the camp by the Rio Grande river, as they tried to cross the US border from Mexico.
The White House has now said horses will no longer be used by agents at the Del Rio border.
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Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, has also denied reports that the Department of Homeland Security had issued a new contract to operate a migrant facility at Guantanamo for Haitian migrants.
In recent days, the migrants have been crossing back and forth between the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna and the camp to buy food and water, currently in short supply on the US side.
As many as 14,000 people were at the camp last Saturday. The population has now been cut to less than half that by expulsion flights and detentions.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said the US has returned 1,401 migrants from the camp to Haiti and taken another 3,206 people into custody.
Career diplomat Mr Foote, who became Haiti envoy in July, said in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants.
“Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my policy recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”
Analysis by Greg Milam, US correspondent
It is the most damning indictment of all for Joe Biden and his handling of the latest crisis on the border that his own special envoy has resigned with a stinging rebuke for the president.
“Inhumane” and “counterproductive” is how Daniel Foote described the Biden administration’s approach to dealing with the crush of thousands of Haitians in a squalid camp on the border in Texas. Deporting people to a country they left a decade ago, now blighted by poverty and violence, he said was “flawed”.
Foote has been accused by the State Department spokesperson of mischaracterising the affair but the noise of squabbling diplomats hardly helps create an impression of an administration that has a grip.
Senior figures within the president’s own party have expressed alarm at the chaos on the border and the apparent lack of a coherent plan to deal with it or the bigger issue of immigration.
The rush of resources to the International Bridge in Del Rio has thinned the numbers camped there and may give the impression of a problem solved but it has simply shifted that problem elsewhere. It happened with the last border surge crisis in Texas and it will happen again. Where and when the next crush will come is the question.
Biden deputed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to deal with the border but the issue has rapidly become an enduring crisis of his presidency. Telling people to stay away is not working.
The president himself has been largely silent on the issue. The longer he remains so, the greater the chance for his political rivals to portray him as a man without a plan.
For weeks, Mr Foote had been trying to boost US security assistance to Haiti to pave the way for presidential elections.
But commentators said he became increasingly disappointed with the speed of decision-making in the White House.
A State Department spokesperson said Washington was committed to the long-term wellbeing of Haiti, as well as offering immediate help to returning migrants.
Bodycam footage showing prison officers fatally beating an inmate has been released by New York’s attorney general.
Prison officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in New York punched and kicked 43-year-old Robert Brooks repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.
He died in hospital on 10 December, a day after the attack.
The incident has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the prison officers’ union as “incomprehensible”, according to Sky News’ partner newsroom NBC.
It is now being investigated by state attorney general Letitia James, who called the videos “shocking and disturbing” at a virtual news conference.
In the video, Mr Brooks is in handcuffs as he is carried into the infirmary by several prison guards.
They put him on the bed and begin repeatedly punching and kicking him.
He is pulled upright, where his bloodied face is visible on camera, and then yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and pushed up against a window.
One of the fourteen workers involved in the incident has resigned and the rest have been suspended without pay until the process to fire them is complete. The workers include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse.
The officers had not activated their body cameras but they were still on and recorded in standby mode, without audio, during the attack.
As a result of the incident, all officers will now need to have their cameras activated any time they are engaging directly with prisoners.
Mr Brooks’ family thanked officials for taking action “to hold officers accountable” in a statement this week.
“We cannot understand how this could have happened in the first place,” the family said. “No one should have to lose a family member this way.”
The attack happened before 9.30pm on 9 December in a medical exam room after Mr Brooks had been transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility to Marcy Correctional Facility.
An autopsy found “preliminary findings show concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to a state corrections office investigative report obtained by an affiliate of Sky News’ partner newsroom WKTV in Utica.
Mr Brooks had been behind bars since 2017 on a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault involving a longtime girlfriend.
Officials declined to say why he had been transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison.
Last year, an independent prison oversight group called The Correctional Association of New York released a report on the Marcy Correctional Facility.
It noted complaints of “rampant” physical abuse by staff members, with 80% of incarcerated people reporting having witnessed or experienced abuse and nearly 70% reporting racial discrimination or bias.
In response to the video, the union that represents workers at the prison said: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”
It adding what transpired is the “opposite of everything [the union] and its membership stand for.”
The world’s best golfer has suffered a freak injury while cooking Christmas dinner, forcing him to undergo surgery.
Scottie Scheffler sustained a puncture wound after cutting the palm of his right hand on broken glass.
The world number one required surgery as small glass fragments remained in the palm after the accident.
The injury has forced him out of the first tournament of the season, next week’s The Sentry in Hawaii.
But the 28-year-old has been told he will recover in three to four weeks, and he hopes to be back in action at The American Express tournament in California on 16 January.
Scheffler won an Olympic gold and seven PGA Tour titles in the last year and was recently named PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for a third season in a row.
In May, he was arrested by police during the US PGA Championship after he was accused of trying to drive around a traffic jam caused by a fatal accident.
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Just hours later, he was released and allowed to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to play his second round of the tournament.
Criminal charges against Scheffler were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence and a police officer who arrested him was disciplined for not having his bodycam on at the time of the incident.
The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.
Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.
He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.
Authorities are still working to identify the victim.
Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.
After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”
Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.
“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”
Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.
Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.
Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.
He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.
During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.