Haitians trying to get into America mass in Tex. town
The U.S. plans to speed up its efforts to expel Haitian migrants on flights to their Caribbean homeland, officials said Saturday as agents poured into a Texas border city where thousands of Haitians have gathered after suddenly crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it moved about 2,000 of the migrants who had gathered under and near a bridge in the border city of Del Rio to other locations on Friday for processing and possible removal from the United States. It also said it would have 400 agents and officers in the area by Monday morning and was prepared to send more if necessary.
The announcement marks a swift response to the sudden arrival of Haitians in Del Rio, a city of about 35,000 people that’s roughly 145 miles west of San Antonio and sits on a relatively remote stretch of border that lacks capacity to hold and process such large numbers of people.
A U.S. official told Associated Press on Friday that operational capacity and Haiti’s willingness to accept flights will determine how many there will be. The official said progress was being made on negotiations with Haitian authorities.
The official said the U.S would likely fly five to eight planes a day, starting Sunday, while another official expected no more than two a day and said all migrants would be tested for COVID-19. Both officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed traffic to vehicles and pedestrians
in both directions Friday at the only border crossing between Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, “to respond to urgent safety and security needs.” Travelers were being directed indefinitely to a crossing in Eagle Pass, 57 miles away.
Crowd estimates varied, but Val Verde County Sheriff Frank Joe Martinez said Friday that there were about 13,700 new arrivals in Del Rio. Migrants pitched tents and built makeshift shelters from giant reeds known as carrizo cane. Many bathed and washed clothing in the river.
The flight plan, while potentially massive in scale, hinges on how Haitians respond. They might have to decide whether to stay put at the risk of being sent back to an impoverished homeland wracked by poverty and political instability or return to Mexico. Unaccompanied children are exempt from fast-track expulsions.
DHS said, “our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey.”
“Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion,” the agency wrote. “Irregular migration poses a significant threat to the health and welfare of border communities and to the lives of migrants themselves, and should not be attempted.”
Stephen Miller, the main architect of former President Donald Trump’s hardline policies and a frequent critic of the Biden administration, expressed doubt that Haiti’s government would agree to the number of flights for a large-scale operation. He recounted daily calls with U.S. State Department officials last year over Haiti’s resistance to flights, with Haiti relenting only under the threat of sanctions.
About 500 Haitians were ordered off buses by Mexican immigration authorities in the state of Tamaulipas, about 120 miles south of the Texas border, the state government said in a news release Friday. They continued toward the border on foot.
Haitians have been migrating to the U.S. in large numbers from South America for several years, many having left their Caribbean nation after a devastating earthquake in 2010. After jobs dried up from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many made the dangerous trek by foot, bus and car to the U.S. border, including through the infamous Darien Gap, a Panamanian jungle.
It is unclear how such a large number amassed so quickly, though many Haitians have been assembling in camps on the Mexican side of the border to wait while deciding whether to attempt to enter the United States.
U.S. authorities are being severely tested after Biden quickly dismantled Trump administration policies that Biden considered cruel or inhumane, most notably one requiring asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while waiting for U.S. immigration court hearings.
A pandemic-related order to immediately expel migrants without giving them the opportunity to seek asylum that was introduced in March 2020 remains in effect, but unaccompanied children and many families have been exempt. During his first month in office, Biden chose to exempt children traveling alone on humanitarian grounds.
Nicole Phillips, legal director for advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, said Saturday that the U.S. government should process migrants and allow them to apply for asylum, not rush to expel them.
Eat or be eaten.
Every day in the animal world, survival hinges on the premise: Are you the predator or the prey?
Sharks and humans have traded those parts since they first encountered one another. Sometimes we eat the shark. Sometimes the shark eats us.
And “Shark Attacks of New York,” by Patricia Heyer and Robert Heyer, recounts many of the times New Yorkers wound up as the entrée.
The Heyers’ history begins in 1642 when Manhattan was still the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Expecting a British attack, peg-legged Gov. Peter Stuyvesant dispatched friend Anthony Van Corlaer to alert residents – even in the rural areas.
Heading for the Bronx, the “robust and gregarious” Manhattan bachelor managed to ride, somewhat tipsily, as far as the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. But there were no boats, it was high tide, and Van Corlaer was in a hurry.
“He strapped his trumpet to his back and took a long snort from his jug,” the Heyers write. “Without saying a word, he dove into the swirling current.”
He got about halfway across. Then a strange, gigantic fish grabbed the Dutchman and pulled him under. And that was the last anyone saw of Van Corlaer.
Admittedly, the old story may be a tall tale, but what’s indisputable is that shark attacks in New York have happened throughout history. It’s impossible to say how many solitary swimmers or lone sailors they’ve taken. Evidence is often, literally, fragmentary.
In 1805, a large shark was caught off Sag Harbor, Long Island. When it had been gutted, half-digested human remains poured out. The best doctors could do was identify them as belonging to a male, age unknown.
Evidence is often incomplete, but all signs point to shark attacks. In August 1858, three boys tried to escape the Staten Island heat by going swimming. Leaving their clothes on a South Shore beach, they jumped into the water.
Their clothes were still there that night.
The boys were never seen again. Two days later, an unidentified young man went swimming in the same waters. He, too, disappeared.
Local fishermen said they saw sharks in the area. But no trace of the missing was ever discovered. The deaths were forgotten. If there were a shark, it swam on.
There were reports of the sharks in the Narrows, even the Gowanus. On Aug. 1, 1860, one wayward beast even made its way to the East River.
Jerry Duke and his father were swimming there when the little boy started screaming. Seeing blood in the water, his panicked parent grabbed him and raced to shore. The boy’s toe was missing.
“Jerry was nibbled by a shark, but he succeeded in escaping,” his father – an Irish laborer identified only as Mr. Duke – told a reporter. The likeliest suspect was a bull shark, able to swim in fresh or saltwater and found as far inland as Illinois.
Jerry Duke only lost a toe. On Aug. 12, 1864, 13-year-old Henry Brice nearly lost his life.
It was another steamy New York day, and Henry was playing on the docks at W. 37th St. Two sailors looking for provisions asked the boy if he’d watch their rowboat for them. Henry agreed – if they let him take it out for a bit. After rowing into the Hudson, he decided to take a dip. Suddenly something clamped onto his ankle. Henry screamed and started swimming away. The water churned, and enormous jaws clamped down again on his thigh.
Henry managed to scramble back into the rowboat. Other sailors saw the commotion and headed over. They had just climbed aboard and tied off the boy’s wounds when the shark attacked again, biting a foot-long chunk off the boat.
It’s unlikely sailors ever rowed faster to get ashore.
Henry, luckily, survived. The attack left workers in the nearby meatpacking district unsurprised. They admitted there were always plenty of sharks around – perhaps because the men were in the habit of dumping meat they couldn’t sell into the river.
Bull sharks were certainly vicious. But they were barely half the size of the great white that attacked Peter Johnson.
The 19-year-old was working on a schooner on Sept. 2, 1865, when the winds died down, briefly stranding the ship in Long Island Sound. The captain suggested the crew go swimming. “It wouldn’t hurt you to have a bath for once in your lives,” he joked.
No sooner had Johnson jumped overboard than a great white shark grabbed him and swam to the bottom.
Johnson punched the shark hard in the snout. It briefly let him go, and Johnson swam to the surface. Chasing after him, the shark attacked again. And again.
“As the crew looked on in
OK, it’s not an invasion, but critters have had a taste for N.Y.ers
horror, Peter was flung about like a rag doll through sprays of red water,” the Heyers write. “He jammed his thumb into the eye of the shark as far as he could. At last it let go.”
What the sailors managed to pull into the ship was hardly recognizable as a man at all.
He was still alive, though. They frantically rowed to shore.
On land, three physicians worked on Johnson’s body. There was barely enough to stitch together. Finally, in desperation, one doctor wrapped the teen’s entire torso in wire, binding him like a mummy.
Much to the doctor’s shock,
Johnson survived. He walked out of the hospital three months later, albeit with horrific scars and “a peculiar, malformed waist.”
To some New York swimmers, it began to seem sharks were somehow becoming even more fearless.
On July 25, 1880, a captain reported his sailboat was under attack and nearly sunk by “thousands” of sharks off Bay Ridge. On Aug. 18, 1884, a man clamming in Jamaica Bay was chased by a shark so hungry it pursued him through just 4 feet of water.
Worst was 1916, and a season that became known as “the summer of the sharks.”
Over two weeks, multiple incidents were reported in New Jersey waters. On July 12 alone, four people were savagely attacked in Matawan Creek; two died. The next day, another man was attacked in New York, in Sheepshead Bay.
Then, on July 14, a Harlem taxidermist caught a great white in New Jersey’s Raritan Bay. Its belly was filled with human remains.
Was it the fabled “Jersey man-eater”? Nervous swimmers wanted to believe so. But even if it were, plenty of other hungry predators were still swimming out there. Long Island alone reported shark attacks in 1920, 1931, and
The truth is most sharks are harmless, and actual attacks are rare. The last ones recorded in New York were in 2018, off Fire Island. Neither was fatal. The odds of being killed by a shark are roughly 1 in 3.8 million.
“You are more likely to be hit by lightning, or be killed in a train crash, or to win the lottery than to be attacked by a shark,” the authors point out. “There are only about eight deaths per year by shark attack. At the same time, ten million sharks are killed by humans each year.”
If anyone is keeping score, humans look to be winning.
But that doesn’t mean sharks aren’t trying to catch up.