hollisterclothingoutlet
fashion clothes for kids

Thousands of Haitian migrants camp under bridge in Texas

By hollisterclothingoutlet 27/11/2022 500 Views

DEL RIO, Texas —

Thousands of Haitian migrants have settled under and around a bridge in a small Texas border town, presenting a chaotic new challenge to the Biden administration on Friday as it tries to manage the sheer number of asylum seekers who have arrived on American soil.

Haitians crossed the Rio Grande (or Rio Grande) freely and in a constant flow, going back and forth between the United States and Mexico through knee-deep water, some of them carrying small children on their shoulders.

Unable to buy supplies in the United States, they briefly returned to Mexico in search of food and cartons to settle, at least temporarily, under or near the bridge in Del Río, a city of 35,000 that has been badly affected by the migrant flows in recent months.

Migration

Advertisement

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

The vast majority of migrants on the bridge Friday were Haitian, said Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens, who is the county's top elected official and whose jurisdiction includes Del Rio. Some families bring up to six days under the bridge.

There were piles of garbage 10 feet (3 meters) wide and at least two women have given birth, including one who tested positive for COVID-19 after being taken to a hospital, Owens added.

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

Mexican immigration authorities ordered about 500 Haitians to get off buses in the state of Tamaulipas, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) south of the Texas border, the state government said in a press release Friday. The migrants continued to the border on foot.

Haitians have been migrating to the United States in large numbers from South America for several years, many following a devastating 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean nation.

Thousands of Haitian migrants camp under bridge in Texas

After jobs dried up since the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many made the perilous journey by foot, bus and car to the US border, including through the infamous Darién, a Panamanian jungle area.

It's unclear how such large numbers have accumulated so quickly, though many Haitians have been camping on the Mexican side of the border to wait while they decide whether to try to enter the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "We will address it accordingly," Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of Homeland Security, said on MSNBC.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a frequent critic of President Joe Biden, said he was told by federal authorities that the migrants under the bridge would be moved by the Department of Defense to Arizona, California and other Texas border locations. .

USA

Some Haitians in the camp have lived in Mexican border towns for some time, often moving between them, while others have recently arrived after being stuck near the Mexico-Guatemala border, said Nicole Phillips, legal director of the advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance. A feeling of desperation began to spread after the Biden administration ended its practice of daily admitting asylum seekers deemed particularly vulnerable.

“People are panicking about finding shelter,” Phillips said.

Édgar Rodríguez, a lawyer for the Casa del Migrante shelter in Piedras Negras, north of Del Rio, noticed an increase in the arrival of Haitians in the area two or three weeks ago, and believes that misinformation may have played a role. Migrants often make decisions based on false rumors that policies are about to change and that enforcement policies vary by city.

U.S. authorities are being put to a severe test after President Biden swiftly scrapped policies implemented by former President Donald Trump's administration that the Democratic president considered cruel or inhumane, especially one that required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting their hearings in the US immigration courts. These migrants have been exposed to extreme violence in Mexico and have had great trouble finding lawyers.

Last month, the US Supreme Court upheld a judge's order reinstating the policy, though Mexico must agree to its terms. The Justice Department said in a document delivered to the court this week that discussions with the Mexican government were ongoing.

A pandemic-related order to expeditiously remove migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum that was implemented in March 2020 remains in effect, but children traveling without an adult and many families have been exempt. During his first month in office, Biden decided to exempt unaccompanied minors on humanitarian grounds.

International

The US government has been unable to remove many Central American families because Mexican authorities have largely refused to accept them into the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings .

On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington barred the government from applying Title 42, as the pandemic-related order is known, to any family.

Mexico has agreed to receive expelled families from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador only, creating an opening for Haitians and people from other nations because the United States lacks the resources to detain and expeditiously expel them in flights to their places of origin.

In August, U.S. authorities apprehended migrants nearly 209,000 times at the border, an amount close to a 20-year high, despite the fact that many of the encounters were with repeat border crossers, as they were not There are legal consequences to being removed based on Title 42.

People who crossed in families were stopped 86,487 times in August, but fewer than one in five of those encounters resulted in a Title 42 removal. The rest were processed under immigration laws, which generally means they were released with a court date or notice to appear before immigration authorities.

U.S. authorities detained Haitians 7,580 times in August, a number that has risen monthly since August 2020, when they accounted for just 55 encounters.

The arrivals of Ecuadorians, Venezuelans and other nationalities outside traditional countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have also increased.

Related Articles

Be careful: Here we tell you the dangers of hanging wet clothes inside the house

The accelerator of Juan Roig, owner of Mercadona, opens a 'pop up' store