Official: US to expel Haitians from border, fly to Haiti

DEL RIO, Texas – The Biden government plans large-scale eviction of Haitian migrants from a small border town in Texas by putting them on flights to Haiti starting Sunday, an official said Friday, in a quick and dramatic response to thousands who suddenly crossed the border from Mexico and gathered under and around a bridge.

Details remain to be determined but are likely to include five to eight flights a day, the official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not empowered to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. San Antonio, the nearest major city, may be one of the departure cities.

Another administrative official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expected no more than two flights a day and said all migrants would be tested for COVID-19.

U.S. authorities blocked vehicles and pedestrians in both directions at the only border crossing in Del Rio, Texas after chaos spread Friday and a new and immediate challenge for the administration as it tries to resolve a major one Managing number of asylum seekers who have been displaced reach US soil.

US Customs and Border Protection said it was closing the border crossing to Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, “to respond to urgent security needs.” Travelers were directed to Eagle Pass, Texas, 56 miles away.

Haitians crossed the Rio Grande freely and in a steady stream that went back and forth between the United States and Mexico through knee-deep water, with some parents carrying young children on their shoulders. Unable to buy supplies in the United States, they briefly returned to Mexico to settle, at least temporarily, under or near the bridge in Del Rio, a city of 35,000 that has been hit by the influx of migrants in recent months.

Migrants pitched tents and made makeshift shelters out of giant reeds known as carrizo canes. Many bathed and washed clothes in the river.

The vast majority of migrants at the bridge on Friday were Haitians, said Lewis Owens, Val Verde county judge, who is the county’s highest elected official and under whose jurisdiction Del Rio belongs. Some families have been under the bridge for six days.

Piles of trash were 3.1 meters wide and at least two women gave birth, including one who tested positive for COVID-19 after being rushed to a hospital, Owens said.

Val Verde County’s Sheriff Frank Joe Martinez estimated the crowd at 13,700 and said more Haitians were traveling around Mexico by bus.

The flight schedule, while potentially massive, depends on how Haitians react. You may be faced with a choice: remain at the risk of being sent back to your impoverished homeland – plagued by poverty, political instability and a recent earthquake – or return to Mexico. Unaccompanied children are exempt from expedited deportation.

About 500 Haitians were ordered from buses by the Mexican immigration authorities in the state of Tamaulipas, about 200 kilometers south of the Texas border, the state government said in a press release on Friday. We continued on foot towards the border.

Haitians have been immigrating to the US in large numbers from South America for several years, many of them leaving the Caribbean after a devastating earthquake in 2010. Hike to the US border on foot, by bus and by car, including through the infamous one Darien Gap, a Panamanian jungle.

It is unclear how such a large number has accumulated so quickly, although many Haitians have gathered in camps on the Mexican side of the border, including Tijuana, across from San Diego, to wait until they decide whether or not to trying to enter the United States.

The US Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. “We will approach it accordingly,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on MSNBC.

An administrative official, who was not empowered to raise the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the action was not directed specifically against Haitians and did not reflect political change, but merely a continuation of normal practice.

The Federal Aviation Administration, acting on a request from the Border Patrol, restricted drone flights around the bridge until September 30 and generally prohibited operations at or below 1,000 feet (305 meters) unless it was safe to do so – or law enforcement purposes.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and frequent critic of President Joe Biden, said federal officials had told him that migrants would be moving under the bridge from the Department of Defense to Arizona, California and elsewhere on the Texas border.

Some Haitians in the camp have lived in Mexican cities on the U.S. border for some time and often move between them, while others arrived recently after being stranded near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, said Nicole Phillips, the advocacy group’s legal director Haitian Bridge Alliance. A feeling of despair spread after the Biden government ended its practice of daily accepting asylum seekers migrants who were considered to be particularly at risk.

“People are panicking because they are seeking refuge,” said Phillips.

Edgar Rodríguez, lawyer for the migrant shelter Casa del Migrante in Piedras Negras, north of Del Rio, noticed an increase in Haitians in the area two or three weeks ago and believes misinformation may have played a role. Often based on false rumors, migrants decide that policies will change and that enforcement policies vary by city.

US authorities are undergoing rigorous testing after Biden quickly dismantled the Trump administration’s policies that Biden viewed as cruel or inhuman, particularly one requiring asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they were on US hearings. Immigration courts are waiting. Such migrants have faced extreme violence in Mexico and have had extraordinary difficulty in finding lawyers.

The US Supreme Court last month approved a court order to reinstate the policy, despite Mexico being required to agree to the terms. The Justice Department said in a court file this week that talks with the Mexican government were ongoing.

A pandemic order introduced in March 2020 to immediately evict migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum remains in force, but unaccompanied children and many families have been exempted. During his first month in office, Biden decided to exclude unaccompanied children on humanitarian grounds.

The US government was unable to deport many Central American families because the Mexican authorities in the state of Tamaulipas, across from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, have largely refused to accept them. On Friday, the government said it would appeal a day earlier a judge’s ruling that prevented them from applying Title 42, as the Pandemic Authority is known, to families.

Mexico has agreed to accept deported families only from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, opening the way for Haitians and other nationalities as the US lacks the means to arrest them and deport them quickly on flights to their home countries.

In August, US authorities stopped migrants at the border nearly 209,000 times, which was close to a 20-year high, although many of the attacks involved repeated cross-border commuters as there are no legal ramifications for a Title 42 deportation.

People traveling with families were stopped 86,487 times in August, but fewer than one in five of those encounters resulted in Title 42 expulsion. The remainder were treated under immigration laws, which usually means they are released with a court hearing or notification were reported to the immigration authorities.

US authorities stopped Haitians 7,580 times in August, a number that has increased every month since August 2020 when they stopped only 55 and El Salvador.

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Spagat reported from San Diego. Contributors to this report were associate press writers Ben Fox, Alexandra Jaffe and Colleen Long in Washington, Paul Weber in Austin, David Koenig in Dallas, and Maria Verza in Mexico City.