Mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas continues | Migration News

The United States has forcibly flown hundreds of mostly Haitian migrants to the Texas-Mexico border and plans to deport about 12,000 more over the next week.

On Sunday, more than 320 migrants living in a camp arrived under a bridge that connects Del Rio in Texas with Ciudad Acuna in Mexico on three flights in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

US authorities said the flights included some of the 3,300 migrants brought under the bridge since Friday, and the government aims to “quickly” process 12,662 others living in the camp over the next seven days.

Authorities have allowed some to apply for asylum, but expelled others quickly due to a controversial public health regulation. Haitian authorities said six more flights were expected on Tuesday.

“I left Haiti to find a better future,” Stephanie, who refused to give her last name, told Reuters after detailing how she was taken to a detention center by US agents under the bridge before going on a flight to Haiti.

Many of the migrants who gathered under the bridge fled to Chile or Brazil first after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean.

They started moving north in 2016 and 2017 when jobs became scarce in South America after the Rio Olympics.

Stephanie described Haiti’s economy as incapable of giving many young people like her a chance. “If jobs could be created, we would never have faced this misery in other countries,” she said.

A 28-year-old woman who identified herself only as Jeanne told AFP that she, her husband and three-year-old son spent two months and $ 9,000 en route through South and Central America and Mexico US.

“It’s an inexplicable thing. Nobody can really explain the horror, ”said Jeanne about the trip. “If I had known what I was going to go through, I would never have made the trip.”

She added that she was now moving with her in-laws to a gang-controlled neighborhood on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

“Imagine if some guys could go into the president’s house and kill him in his room,” she said. “And me? I can’t feel well.”

Mass displacement

The eviction of the camp appears to be one of the largest expulsions of migrants in decades, with the US using the coronavirus-related health order known as Title 42 to immediately evict those who have gathered under the bridge without the opportunity to give, to seek asylum.

The arrangement was introduced in March 2020 under former President Donald Trump but is used regularly by President Joe Biden’s administration. Unlike Trump, the Biden administration has exempted unaccompanied minors from the rule.

The only obvious parallel to such mass deportation without asylum was when the Coast Guard intercepted Haitian refugees at sea in 1992, said Yael Schacher, senior U.S. attorney at Refugees International, whose doctoral studies focused on the history of U.S. asylum law, told The Associated Press.

On Sunday, Alejandro Mayorkas, head of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tried to allay concerns that the deportations would exacerbate the ongoing economic and crime crisis in Haiti, telling reporters that the Haitian government had “made us very clear about its ability to do so.” Get flights ”.

“We currently have no choice but to increase return flights,” Mayorkas said, adding that they would either bring migrants to Haiti or “possibly other countries.” He did not specify which of them.

Mexico has agreed to accept expelled migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but no Haitians who have been deported.

On Sunday, Mexico said it will also begin to deport Haitians home from cities near the U.S. border and along the Guatemala border, where a large group of Haitian migrants are located.

A day earlier, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry said arrangements had already been made to take in those who were repatriated. This promise offered little comfort to the migrants arriving in Haiti.

Mondesir Sirilien said he spent about $ 15,000 to leave Haiti, first traveling to Brazil before heading to the US border.

“I could have invested the money here, I could have built a great business. It’s not that we don’t know how to do things, ”he said from Port-au-Prince.

“But we are not respected, we are humiliated, and now we have no one to defend us,” said Sirilien.