Haitian migrants who were seen waiting by the thousands under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, have started crossing back into Mexico to avoid being part of the Biden administration’s “mass expulsion” of migrants under Title 42.
Photographers documenting the border crisis that’s been brewing near Del Rio since earlier this month noticed migrants crossing the Rio Grande and returning to Mexico, Monday, after the U.S. launched a plan to “expel” most Haitian migrants who presented themselves under the border under Title 42, a Trump-era rule that allows the government to immediately deport migrants over COVID-19 concerns.
#BREAKING: Migrants under Del Rio’s International Bridge have started crossing back to Mexico to avoid deportation. @BillFOXLA @DrewHLive @RealDrGina @AliBradleyTV @BenBergquam @JackPosobiec pic.twitter.com/3UOJBOEazn
— Auden B. Cabello (@CabelloAuden) September 20, 2021
“Migrants began flowing back into the Mexican side of the southern border on Monday from Del Rio, Texas as the Department of Homeland Security plans to ramp up deportation flights to seven per day,” the Daily Mail noted. “Video emerged Monday of scores of mostly Haitian migrants making the trek back across the Rio Grande River to Mexico from the U.S after three flights full of migrants from the U.S. landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Sunday.”
The U.S. began expelling Haitian migrants on Sunday in response to photos and videos showing thousands of mostly Haitian migrants crowded under an overpass in Del Rio, waiting to present themselves to Customs and Border Protection and demand asylum, according to The Associated Press.
“The U.S. flew Haitians camped in a Texas border town back to their homeland Sunday and tried blocking others from crossing the border from Mexico in a massive show of force that signaled the beginning of what could be one of America’s swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades,” the AP noted. “More than 320 migrants arrived in Port-au-Prince on three flights, and Haiti said six flights were expected Tuesday. In all, U.S. authorities moved to expel many of the more 12,000 migrants camped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, after crossing from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to the border Monday to view the situation on the ground.
Haitian migrants are presenting themselves at the border, en masse, following major political upheaval and a massive earthquake in their home country. Many fled to Mexico and South America initially and now, spurred on by news that the Biden administration “temporary protected status for the 150,000 Haitians already living in the country,” “tens of thousands have attempted to cross into the United States” even though they are not among those qualified for the amnesty, The New York Times noted.
Haiti weighed in Monday, telling media that they would accept those sent back to Haiti on deportation flights but that they would prefer the United States make accommodations.
“We are here to say welcome, they can come back and stay in Haiti — but they are very agitated,” Haiti’s immigration minister, Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, said Monday. “They don’t accept the forced return.”
“The Haitian state is not really able to receive these deportees,” he added.