US begins deporting Haitian migrants, but continues to flow to Texas border

DEL RIO, Texas –

A week after Haitian migrant Junior Desterville, 30, and his family traveled from Chile to the burgeoning migrant camp here on the American shores of the Rio Grande, the unkempt-haired mechanic returned to the Mexican side early Sunday. buy food for his starving wife and 4-year-old daughter, Nayalla.

By noon, Desterville, dressed in a blue t-shirt and black shorts, had returned north through chest-high water to successfully return from Ciudad Acuña as Mexican police and soldiers the state of Texas sought to block river crossings by hundreds of inbound migrants. .

Passing by a crowd of hundreds of people and walking up dirt trails along the riverbank that reeked of human waste, he found his wife, Stephanie, in one of the many huts the migrants had built from there. carrizo cane bordering the waters. They have slept on the dirt inside the hut ever since they traveled to this hot and chaotic camp of around 14,000 migrants after three months’ toil, mostly by bus, through Chile, the Central America and Mexico.

Desterville said he cannot imagine returning to Haiti.

“We have no president and no security,” he said, referring to the recent assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the devastating earthquake.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Stephanie, 24. ” We are hungry. “

For many, however, crossing the Rio Grande probably seems to mean a one-way plane ticket back to ailing Haiti.

On Sunday, the Biden administration began to keep its promise to return Haitian migrants from Del Rio to their countries of origin, the Associated Press reported. The United States has returned three flights of migrants taken from the camp, and the number of flights is expected to reach at least six a day soon, according to a US government official who requested anonymity because the official was not allowed to discuss the matter publicly.

The planes departed from San Antonio, the AP reported, and arrived Sunday afternoon in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, each carrying 145 passengers.

The families of the first flight held the children by the hand or carried them when they left. Dozens of people lined up for a meal of rice, beans, chicken and plantains while wondering where they would find housing or employment. Each received $ 100 and have been tested for COVID-19, although there has been no plan to quarantine any, said Marie-Lourde Jean-Charles of the National Migration Office.

In Del Rio, a large number of buses to transport additional migrants arrived on Sunday to be transferred to the flights, or to place them in detention centers run by the border patrol.

Some 3,300 migrants have already been evacuated from the Del Rio camp to planes or detention centers, border patrol chief Raul L. Ortiz told a press conference on Sunday, and he expected this. that 3,000 of the approximately 12,600 additional migrants are displaced in one day. The rest should be gone within a week, he said.

“We are working around the clock to quickly move migrants out of the heat, elements and under this bridge to our processing facilities to quickly process and remove individuals from the United States in accordance with our laws and policies,” Ortiz said.

Meanwhile, more Haitian migrants appeared to be arriving at the border, undeterred by the US plan.

The influx to the border outpost 145 miles west of San Antonio has come since the United States temporarily halted deportations to Haiti last month following a magnitude 7 earthquake. , 2 which struck a month after the assassination of the Haitian president.

Nearly 28,000 Haitians were intercepted by the border patrol for the year ending this month, up from 4,395 the previous year and 2,046 the year before. Others were in camps in southern Mexico.

The mayor of Del Rio, Bruno “Ralphy” Lozano, a Democrat, declared a local state of emergency on Friday and announced that authorities were closing the port of entry. He warned that with more migrants en route, the camp is expected to grow to 20,000 – which, in a town of 35,000, has already sparked an anti-immigrant protest.

Haitian migrants did not push north into town, instead they crossed the river to buy food and other supplies in Ciudad Acuña. Late Saturday, US officials attempted to cut off access to Mexico, confining migrants to the camp. But residents of migrant camps and new arrivals continued to wade north through the shallows, with the most recent surrendering to border patrol agents and receiving blue numbered tickets which they hoped would allow them to seek asylum.

Desterville, numbering 11,240, said the border patrol separates migrants upon arrival, removing singles and leaving families to wait by the river.

Several of the camp residents were pregnant women, at least one of whom gave birth after entering the United States, was taken to hospital and then returned to the camp.

On Sunday, a woman collapsed at the sight of National Guard troops, who slowly approached and carried her away.

Zareal German, 45, who spent four days in the camp with his wife, who was five months pregnant, said he and other migrants were denied medical help. Only emergencies were taken to hospital, he said.

“You see, they don’t care about us,” German said. “Look how we live like animals. “

He said he had heard of the eviction flights, but they would not deter him, he said.

“It doesn’t change my mind. I have one thing in mind: to reach my destination, ”he said. He has family in South Florida, he said, where his father recently died, and he’s come hoping to arrive in time for Saturday’s funeral.

“To get here, we had to cross 10 countries. We must have spent a lot of money. You’re broke, ”said Alex Bravener, 25, who lived in Chile and Brazil before arriving here with his wife and 3-year-old daughter last week.

“We know we come here illegally, but we are also human, like the president. We have children, “he said.” If you’re going to kick us out, why did you let us in here? If we’re already here, try to do something for us. The world knows we’ve lost our president We had our earthquakes.

“You expel us, what will we do in Haiti? Some of us have been in another country for years. We don’t even know our family there. How are we going to live? We know America can help us save our children.

Haitians have at times been exempted from the pandemic policy known as Title 42 that the Biden administration used to deport migrants to Mexico without allowing them to seek asylum. Many Haitian migrants had gathered in Mexican border towns southeast of Del Rio in recent months after learning that families with children were not being deported to Mexico.

Homeland Security announced on Saturday that it was speeding up eviction flights, although it is not clear how many daily flights Haitian authorities have agreed to receive. Federal authorities were also trying to return some Haitians to countries they had passed through on their way to Mexico, such as Brazil and Chile.

Republicans have been complaining about a border crisis for months. In August, the border patrol arrested migrants nearly 209,000 times, near a peak in 20 years. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has made Del Rio the center of a campaign to make the border more secure, sending dozens of state and National Guard soldiers to fill local hotels and even set up a tent camp on the exhibition grounds.

On Saturday, Abbott tweeted a photo of state soldiers’ cars along the river, blocking migrants.

“The Texas Department of Public Safety is in full force along the border around the Del Rio area,” he wrote. “They built a barricade with their patrol cars and State Troopers. The National Guard is working with them to secure the border. “

The mayor of Del Rio thanked Abbott for the deployment in a video posted Saturday night.

“The governor is trying to provide assistance to help keep the port safe and to ensure that we don’t have a major mass movement in case someone or individuals start pouring into the port,” he said. said Lozano.