Haitian Bridge Alliance Executive Director Guerline Jozef. (Photo: CMC)
SAN DIEGO, United States (CMC) – The San Diego, California-based immigrant advocacy group, Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has called for justice for black and brown refugees, as it honors the “strength, dignity and resilience” of the more than 100 million people around the globe who have been forcibly displaced.
“As an organisation 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,” HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on World Refugee Day on Friday.
“World Refugee Day is not only a time to recognise the courage of those seeking safety, but also a moment to confront the racial hypocrisy embedded in our global asylum systems,” she added. “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 pretence of a so-called genocide. This is not immigration policy. It is white supremacist statecraft.”
Jozef said that, under the Trump administration in the United States, “sweeping asylum bans and cruel deterrence strategies have criminalised 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,” she said.
In his message on World Refugee Day 2025, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the day was not only to honor the courage and resilience of millions of people around the world who are forced to flee war, violence and persecution, but it was also “a moment to sound an alarm on their behalf.
“Record numbers of men, women and children – over 122 million people worldwide – have been uprooted from their homes, but their ability to find safety and support is threatened as never before,” he warned. “To make a desperate position worse, brutal cuts to humanitarian aid are choking off assistance, threatening the lives of millions of people who desperately need help.
“At this critical juncture, it is vital that we reaffirm our solidarity with refugees – not just with words but with urgent action,” Grandi added. “Now more than ever, we must stand with refugees to keep alive their hopes of a better future.
“This World Refugee Day and every day, governments, institutions, companies and individuals can prove that by helping those caught up in senseless conflicts, we move towards greater stability, humanity and justice for us all,” he continued. “If we do so, I can promise you that refugees will bring all their courage, spirit and ingenuity to the task of creating a better, brighter tomorrow.”