WILD WEST BORDER
Crossings continue as Haiti flights begin
Migrants continued to cross the Mexican border into the United States on Sunday, even as the first deportation flights carried away hundreds of Haitians who had been living under a Texas bridge.
More than 14,000 Haitians have been camping out and waiting to be arrested in squalid conditions under the Del Rio International Bridge, leading the Biden administration to close a US entry point, deploy more Border Patrol agents and scramble deportation flights.
About a dozen Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles lined up near the bridge, which links the city of Del Rio with Mexico, forcing the migrants to wade through deeper water in search of other ways to cross the Rio Grande into the state.
Border Patrol agents on horseback found several hundred Haitian immigrants fording the river about 1¹/2 miles from the original crossing, and sent them to the Del Rio camp.
Border Patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz told The Associated Press on Sunday that 3,300 migrants had been removed from the camp to planes or detention centers, and that he expected to have 3,000 of the approximately 12,600 remaining migrants moved within a day.
The first of three deportation flights carrying 145 people each took off on Sunday from San Antonio to Port-au-Prince. A US government official said there could be up to eight flights a day.
Deportees, worried what awaited them in their homeland, were given $100 and fed meals of rice, beans and chicken.
Ariel Henry, Haiti’s prime minister, wrote on Twitter that he was concerned about the “extremely difficult” conditions at the border camp and pledged that Haitians would be welcomed back.
“We want to reassure them that measures have already been taken to give them a better welcome upon their return to the country and that they will not be left behind,” he tweeted.
Haiti is recovering from a devastating earthquake that struck last month, and the government is in turmoil following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in his home the month before.
Some of the Haitians said they did not want to return home.
“In Haiti, there is no security. The country is in a political crisis,” Fabricio Jean, 38, who arrived in Texas with his wife and two daughters, told the AP.
Many of the Haitians arriving at the US border have come from South America, where they fled after Haiti was struck by a 2010 earthquake but where they have been unable to find jobs.
The arrival of the Haitians in Del Rio is adding fuel to criticism of President Biden’s handling of immigration at the southern border.
Upon taking office in January, Biden began rolling back or dumping many of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, leading many immigrants in Mexico and Central American countries to believe they would be welcome in the US.
US border officials reported more than 200,000 encounters with illegal immigrants last month, the second straight month the number topped 200,000. The August figure marked a 317 percent increase from a year ago.