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The United States forcibly flew hundreds of mainly Haitian immigrants out of the border between Texas and Mexico. Planned eviction Approximately 12,000 will be added next week.
On Sunday, more than 320 immigrants living in the camp-under a bridge connecting Del Río, Texas and the city of Acuna, Mexico-arrived in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, on three flights.
US authorities said the flights included some of the 3,300 immigrants transferred from under the bridge since Friday, and the government’s goal is to “quickly” process the other 12,662 people living in the camp within the next seven days.
The authorities allowed some people to seek asylum, but quickly expelled others under a controversial public health rule. Haitian authorities said that six more flights are expected on Tuesday.
“I left Haiti in search of a better future,” Stephanie, who declined to give her surname, told Reuters. She described in detail how American agents took her from under the bridge to the detention facility and then was loaded on a plane to Haiti.
Many migrants who gathered under the bridge fled after the 2010 earthquake that swept the Caribbean countries, usually heading to Chile or Brazil first.
As job opportunities in South America are scarce, they began to migrate north in 2016 and 2017 After the Rio Olympics.
Stephanie described Haiti’s economy as unable to provide opportunities for dozens of young people like her. “If we can create jobs, we will never suffer this kind of suffering in other countries,” she said.
A 28-year-old woman who called herself Jenny told AFP that she, her husband and their three-year-old son spent two months and $9,000 to travel to us through Vietnam, Central America and Mexico.
“This is an unexplainable thing. No one can really explain this horror,” Jenny said of the trip. “If I knew what I was going to experience, I would never travel.”
She added that she will now move with her in-laws to a gang-controlled community on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Recent assassination The President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, emphasized that the security situation in the country remains unstable.
“Imagine some people can enter the president’s house and kill him in his room,” she said. “With me? I can’t feel comfortable.”
Mass expulsion
The cleanup of refugee camps appears to be one of the largest deportations of immigrants in decades, and the United States has used coronavirus-related health orders. Called heading 42 Immediately expel those gathered under the bridge without giving them a chance to seek asylum.
The order was introduced in March 2020 under the leadership of former President Donald Trump, but it has been used frequently by the administration of President Joe Biden. Unlike Trump, the Biden administration has excluded unaccompanied minors from the rule.
Yael Schacher, a senior American advocate for Refugee International, whose PhD research focused on the history of American asylum law, told reporters that the only obvious similarity to this mass deportation without a chance to seek asylum was in 1992, when the Coast Guard intercepted at sea Haiti refugees. Associated Press News Agency.
On Sunday, the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, tried to dispel concerns that the deportation would further aggravate Haiti’s ongoing economic and criminal crisis. He told reporters that the Haitian government ” We clearly communicated its ability to receive flights”.
“At this time we have no choice but to increase repatriation flights,” Majorcas said, adding that they will take migrants to Haiti or “possibly other countries.” He did not specify which ones.
Although Mexico has agreed to accept deported immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, it does not accept deported Haitians.
On Sunday, Mexico said it would also start deporting Haitians from towns near the U.S. border and border areas with Guatemala back to their home country, where there are a large number of Haitian immigrants.
A day ago, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry stated that “arrangements have been made” to receive those deported. This promise did not bring much comfort to migrants returning to Haiti.
Mondesir Sirilien said he spent approximately US$15,000 to leave Haiti, first to Brazil and then to the US border.
“I could have invested this money here, I could have built a great business. This is not to say that we didn’t know how to do things,” he said in Port-au-Prince.
“But we were not respected, we were humiliated, and now we have no one to protect us,” Sirilien said.
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