Haitians set up camp on U.S. Mexican border
Del Rio, September 27 (RHC)-- A Texas border encampment where about 15,000 migrants had set up makeshift shelters has been cleared, as authorities continued a controversial policy of expelling asylum seekers from the United States.
Workers over the weekend finished removing the last debris of impromptu shelters and tents in Del Rio, Texas, as state troopers lined the banks of the Rio Grande, on the border with Mexico, to discourage new crossings.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said “there are no longer any migrants in the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge.” Nearly 30,000 migrants, many of them from Haiti, had been camping underneath Del Rio International Bridge in the past two weeks.
According to Mayorkas, more than 12,000 migrants will have a chance to make their case for protection before US immigration judges, an estimated 8,000 voluntarily returned to Mexico, and 2,000 had been expelled.
More could be expelled in the coming days under pandemic powers that deny people the chance to seek asylum. Democratic lawmakers and human rights groups have slammed the repatriation of Haitian migrants to a troubled country that some left more than 10 years ago.
Images of a border guard using reins as whips to contain Haitian migrants sparked outrage earlier this week. “We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism,” Mayorkas said at a news conference, promising a swift inquiry into the matter.
Bruno Lozano, the mayor of Del Rio, has praised agents for trying to provide food and medical care and said there were no deaths. He said his officials were searching the brush along the Rio Grande to ensure nobody was hiding before reopening the international bridge, which would take place on Sunday night at the earliest.
President Joe Biden said the way the agents behaved was “horrible” and that “people will pay” as a result. “It’s an embarrassment, but it’s beyond an embarrassment — it’s dangerous, it’s wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world and sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are,” Biden said.
