The camp on the southern border of the United States has grown to more than 10,000 migrants

The number of migrants, mostly from Haiti, who camped this Friday under a bridge on the southern border of the United States stands at more than 10,000, a humanitarian crisis that embarrasses the administration of Joe Biden.

The displaced arrived in the small town of Del Rio, Texas, crossing the Rio Grande River that separates the United States from Mexico. Of the 2,000 who were at the start of the week, they rose to 10,500 on Thursday at night, said Bruno Lozano, the mayor of this city bordering Ciudad Acuña in Mexico.

“They are mainly from Haiti and enter illegally (…) they are only waiting to be stopped by the border guards” to launch the residence permit procedures, he explained in a video posted on Twitter.

Friday, the Democratic mayor, who is awaiting thousands more arrivals, declared a state of emergency and closed the bridge to traffic.

“Extreme circumstances call for extreme responses,” he told the Texas Tribune. “There are women who give birth, people who pass out from the temperature, they are a little aggressive and that’s normal after all these hot days.”

Despite his calls for “swift action” on the part of the The federal government, President Biden and his cabinet remain silent.

In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) assured that he had increased his staff to deal with the situation in a “safe, humane and orderly” manner.

The shaded area under the international bridge serves as a temporary stopping site “to prevent heat-related illness”, CBP explained, noting that the migrants were given drinking water, towels and portable toilets.

Once taken care of, “The vast majority of adults arriving alone and many families will continue to be deported under Title 42”, a health regulation adopted at the start of the pandemic to slow the spread of the virus, according to this press release.

“Those who cannot be deported under Title 42 and who do not have a legal basis to stay will be placed in an expedited deportation procedure.”, assured the CBP.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the government not to evict the families in this context, which could complicate the task of the authorities, for months in the face of record migratory flows on the border with Mexico. The Biden administration appealed the decision on Friday.

BIDEN’S ACCUSATION

More than 1.3 million people have been detained at the border with Mexico since Biden arrived at the White House, a level not seen in 20 years. Of these, some 596,000 came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and over 464,000 from Mexico.

republican opposition has accused Biden for months of causing a “migration crisis” by relaxing the measures of his predecessor Donald Trump, who had made the fight against illegal immigration one of the workhorses of his government.

The situation in Del Rio, Texas, gave him new arguments. After visiting the region, Republican Senator Ted Cruz denounced “a catastrophe” caused by Biden.

According to Cruz, migrants end up under the bridge “because President Joe Biden made the political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti” after the assassination in July of President Jovenel Moïse, which increased chaos on the Caribbean island.

The number of citizens of Haiti, the poorest country in the region, arriving undocumented in the United States has been on the rise for several months.

Nearly 6,800 Haitians were detained in August at the southern border, or only 4% of all migrants arrested, but more than in July (5,000) or May (2,700).

Many Haitians They left their country after the 2010 earthquake (which killed more than 200,000 people) and settled in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Chile. But finding work and renewing a residence permit has become difficult for thousands of people who have chosen to travel to the north.

“I want to continue my journey because I have a sister in Miami and another in Holland”Domingue Paul, a 40-year-old Haitian who lived in Chile for five years, told AFP in Tapachula, in southern Mexico.

Sensitive to your difficulties, Several Democratic voices have been raised to call on the Biden administration to quickly resolve the situation in Del Rio.

“These Haitian migrants have already suffered a lot during the dangerous journey to our border.“MP Ilhan Omar, a leading figure on the left wing of the party, tweeted.

“The lack of urgency to come to their aid is alarming”, denounced the legislator, arrived in the United States in 1995 as a Somali refugee.

(With information from the AP and AFP)

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