Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger, and hopelessness in their home country said they would not be deterred by U.S. plans to swiftly send them back, as thousands remained encamped on the Texas border.
No one seems to be sure exactly how the numbers of Haitians amassed so quickly under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas, but Del Rio’s mayor, Bruno Lozano, declared a state of emergency, describing the situation as “unprecedented” and “surreal.”
With the situation deteriorating rapidly, US authorities said on Friday that they were temporarily closing the border crossing “to respond to urgent safety and security needs,” The Associated Press reported.
But suffice to say that the squalor, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions now evident at the border town have created a nightmarish crisis for the Biden administration. As of Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved some 2,000 of them to immigration processing stations.
The DHS also said on Saturday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection would send 400 additional agents to the area by Monday morning to help speed the removal of migrants, according to CBC Canada.
Facing harsh criticism from human rights groups and opposition from some Democratic lawmakers, the administration is pushing forward with a strategy meant to relieve the overflow in Del Rio and deter more Haitians from trying to come to the United States.
“We have reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” said Marsha Espinosa, assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, reports the New York Times.
According to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the administration has three flights planned on Sunday and starting on Monday, it will run four flights a day, to return Haitian migrants back to the island nation. Most of the passengers will be single adults.
It really is a humanitarian crisis
The sad truth is that the humanitarian crisis being played out in Del Rio will more than likely continue, despite closing the borders or flying people back to the country they came from.
For Jorge Luis Mora Castillo, a 48-year-old from Cuba, who arrived on Saturday, he said his family paid smugglers $12,000 to take him, his wife, and their son out of Paraguay, to go back to Cuba is not an option. “Because to go back to Cuba is to die,” he said, according to The Guardian.
On learning of the US plans, several Haitian migrants said they intended to remain in the encampment and seek asylum. “In Haiti, there is no security,” said Fabricio Jean, 38, who arrived with his wife and two daughters. “The country is in a political crisis.”
Nicole Phillips, legal director for advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the US should process migrants and allow them to apply for asylum, not rush to expel them. “It really is a humanitarian crisis,” Phillips said. “There needs to be a lot of help there now.”
