Haitian migrants face crucial choices as expulsion flights ramp up
23/09/2021 12:00
By Daina Beth Solomon
CIUDAD ACUNA, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A migrant camp in Texas
near the Mexican border where as many as 14,000 Haitians amassed
in recent days has shrunk to less than half that size amid
expulsion flights and detentions, even as some stay, committed
to trying to remain in the United States.
The United States has returned 1,401 migrants from the camp
at Del Rio, Texas, to Haiti and taken another 3,206 people into
custody, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on
Wednesday.
Wade McMullen, an attorney with the Robert F. Kennedy Human
Rights organization, said several hundred people, mostly
pregnant women and parents with children, had been released in
Del Rio, Texas, over the past several days.
Those people, and others in detention who have not been
expelled, will have immigration court dates.
The Del Rio area, which includes the camp where families
have crammed into makeshift shelters made out of reeds on the
banks of the Rio Grande, now holds fewer than 5,000 people, DHS
said.
The deportations came amid profound instability in the
Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, where a
presidential assassination, gang violence and a major earthquake
have spread chaos in recent weeks.
Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N refugee agency, warned
that the U.S. expulsions to Haiti might violate international
law.
On the other side of the river, several hundred more
Haitians are living in Ciudad Acuna in a makeshift camp dotted
with blankets, pieces of cardboard and a handful of tarps and
tents.
The International Committee of the Red Cross called for
protection for Haitians gathered in Mexico, noting their
"special condition of vulnerability" in a statement on
Wednesday.
STAY OR GO?
As the U.S. authorities have escalated expulsion flights,
some Haitian families have decided to stay in Mexico and seek
legal status there rather than risk being returned to Haiti.
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Enex and Wendy were among those who planned to stay in
Mexico with their 2-year-old daughter after hearing about the
expulsions.
But on Wednesday morning, a cousin told them on WhatsApp
that he had succeeded in entering the United States with his
wife and had a court date to request asylum in October.
"I'm free... I'm in Texas," the message read.
Enex and Wendy, who asked not to disclose their last name,
spent hours on Wednesday paralyzed by uncertainty before finally
gathering up their few belongings and forging the river to the
U.S. side to try their luck, the latest turning point in their
odyssey from Chile that included a seven-day stretch through the
dangerous Darien jungle.
Thousands more Haitians, some of whom had been waiting for
months for responses on their asylum applications in southern
Mexico, traveled north to Mexico City, Veracruz, and Monterrey
this week.
Mexico's refugee agency, COMAR, said that because of high
demand there are no appointments available in its office in
Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, until next year and
that many pending appointments had been rescheduled.
Juliana Exime, a Haitian migrant, decided to stay and wait
out the process in Tapachula, despite the delays.
"I was going to go with a big group heading north, but I'm
very scared they are going to deport me," Exime said. "The only
thing I want is that they let me work in Mexico, I want to do
things legally."
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Ciudad Acuna, Additional
reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Kristina Cooke, Editing by Laura
Gottesdiener)
((daina.solomon@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 5282 7150;))