Atlantic Storm
Related Articles
Thousands of migrants have reportedly been admitted to the United States from the southern border, where others have been forced to take repatriation flights to Haiti, alleged two US officials.
Speaking on condition of anonymity on Tuesday, the two officials said The Associated Press that migrants, many of whom are Haitians, had been released on a “very, very large scale” in recent days.
The number of those who gathered under the international bridge and the border between Texas and Mexico, would have approached 16,000 last week before the start of the eviction flights on Sunday.
But as officials told reporters, many more migrants were reportedly released from the temporary camp in Del RÃo, Texas, and the United States, with instructions to report to an immigration office within 60 days.
In recent days, US authorities have been running out of options for transporting migrants across the border by bus and have resorted to flying migrants to processing facilities in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, as well as in Tuscon, Arizona.
Others were forced to take repatriation flights to Haiti, from where thousands fled following a devastating earthquake in 2010.
More recently, many Haitians fled a presidential assassination in July and another earthquake in August, which again left the island nation in crisis – with a shortage of food, water and medical supplies.
US officials have tried to downplay the magnitude of the challenge for the US border patrol as the number of migrants in Del Rio surpassed 10,000 last week.
Images of migrants at the border forced the White House to issue a warning to migrants not to travel to the United States and threats of redress to Haiti, which began on Sunday.
An unnamed third official said the number of daily flights to deport migrants would drop from three to seven a day from Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
It is not known how many Haitians were deported under Title 42, a Trump administration law that was introduced to deport migrants for public health reasons during the Covid crisis. The independent contacted the US Border Patrol for clarification.
The White House, in the face of criticism for evictions, was also forced to announce an investigation into reports of border patrol agents using whips to intimidate migrants.
One of the officials cited in the report said that the release of migrants in the United States showed the Biden administration wanted to deal with the situation at speed.
The Mexican authorities, meanwhile, are also preparing to repatriate Haitians to Guatemala. Many more already have asylum status in Brazil and Chile and were using Mexico to travel to the United States.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
Read more
