Issued on: 22/09/2021 -
Ciudad Acuña (Mexico) (AFP)
Lying on cardboard in a park, Haitian mother Marie Chickel spent a sleepless night fearful of being detained by Mexican authorities and separated from her children before reaching the United States.
"I heard that the immigration authorities were going to come -- that's why I couldn't sleep. If they find me here I don't know where I'll go," the 45-year-old said.
The rumor spread during the night inside the park in the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna, which Haitian migrants have turned into a makeshift camp near the border with the United States.
Most of the refugees gave up on the idea of staying under the bridge linking Ciudad Acuna with Del Rio in Texas, fearful that US patrols would arrest them and deport them to Haiti.
But on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river, police and immigration agents also patrol and sometimes arrest migrants in the street or in hotel raids.
So Chickel and hundreds of refugees like her avoid leaving the park as much as possible.
In one raid witnessed by AFP, members of what appeared to be a family, including two young children, were detained at a hotel in downtown Ciudad Acuna.
They were escorted by members of Mexico's National Guard and put into vans from the National Migration Institute.
- 'My heart aches' -
Chickel and her 10-year-old twins left Chile and crossed almost all of South and Central America before arriving in July in the Mexican city of Tapachula near the border with Guatemala.
"My heart aches," she said, adding that her children could not sleep or eat well or go to school.
"It's very difficult," Chickel said.
Her greatest fear is having her children taken from her and not being able to see her sister who lives in Boston, she said.
But Chickel, who has qualifications as a lab technician, an electrician and a nurse, is willing to take whatever opportunities she finds.
"If I can't cross and if I can find papers here to work, to send my children to school, I can say thank you to the Lord," she said, stifling a sob.
Amid the despair and uncertainty, the Haitians have found some respite thanks to the generosity of Ciudad Acuna residents who have brought them something to eat, drink or wear.
"The Mexicans are giving us food, clothes and now we have a place to sleep," said Kabelo Joseph, who came from Chile with his two sons and pregnant wife.
But "we're afraid of the migration authorities because we're here without documentation," the 29-year-old said.
He said he planned to stay in Ciudad Acuna "for two or three months if migration doesn't bother us."
- 'Our Haitian brothers' -
Street vendor Haydee Briceno usually sells the used clothes she brings from the United States, but after seeing the migrants' plight she decided to give some of them away instead.
"We're going to give a little bit of what we have to our Haitian brothers," she said.
"I've been in places where I didn't know anyone and believe me it's something very, very difficult," said Pastor Roberto Montano, who lived as an undocumented migrant in the United States years ago.
"We've had the same feeling that they have now of being in need," he said.
The help is a lifeline for people like Chickel, who is exhausted.
"I feel very happy. I say thank you to the Lord because they have hearts. They don't let us die here without food," she said.
© 2021 AFP
Haitian migrants at US border keep hoping
Thousands of Haitians have arrived in the US border town of Del Rio in Texas. Rumors are fueling their hopes of being allowed to stay. But the American president, whom they’re looking to for help, has other plans.
Migrants wade through the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas, to Ciudad Acuna in Mexico as they
go back and forth for supplies
A pale yellow building next to a dusty football field in the border town of Del Rio in Texas represents hope for migrants wanting to come to the US. Those who have made it here have crossed the river and the border, and, for the moment at least, have left behind some of their uncertainty. Migrants holding brown paper envelopes are standing in line in the shade of the buildings, waiting for a bus on this mercilessly hot afternoon.
It's more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the shade, but there is water and fruit here and volunteers from the Border Humanitarian Coalition who are taking care of the migrants. There are no makeshift camps and inhumane conditions like those that exist under the city's bridge spanning the Rio Grande and connecting Mexico with the United States.
The building of the Border Humanitarian Coalition is a point of some refuge for the migrants
Charly is one of more than a hundred migrants here. And, like almost all of them, he is from Haiti. The 32-year-old has been on the move for a long time.
Charly spent two months on the road, traveling through 12 countries. It's all to secure his future, he says. He left his native country years ago and stayed in Chile for a few years. But the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the economic situation there, increasing discrimination against migrants like him.
Charly, seen here with the baby of a fellow refugee, has been on the road for two months
For him, returning to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, is not an option, and he sees no future for himself there. The country slid deeper into chaos after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July and an earthquake in August.
Wearing a blue baseball cap and colorful floral-printed shirt, Charly is finally on American soil. He's hoping he won't be deported, because he has family in Orlando.
It's the same with Edlin. The 27-year-old sits somewhat to the side, feeding her 1-year-old daughter. "I'm hoping for work and a better life," she says. She, too, initially fled to Chile, in 2018 and, just like Charly, was on the road for about two months. "I'm doing fine," Edlin says, despite everything she's been through. She speaks in short sentences, almost always looking at her daughter.
Edlin also has the envelope in which she has papers that will supposedly lead her to her family in the US. Among the people here, there's a widespread rumor that no one who has family in the US will be deported. Many of the migrants here believed that things would get better with Joe Biden as US president and that the promise of America would be within reach.
But even though Biden has promised a more humanitarian immigration policy than Donald Trump and stopped Trump's wall-building, it hasn't really led to fewer fortifications along the country's long southern border.
Damaging images around the world
A few kilometers (miles) south of the yellow building in Del Rio, hope quickly fades as a black steel fence looms. After images of deplorable conditions in an impromptu overcrowded migrant camp under a bridge in the town went public, access to the site has been blocked.
The no-man's-land in the border region is now sealed off. In the windows of a long-closed supermarket, there's an advert in Spanish for cigarettes and alcohol. The paint peeling off, it still holds out the promise of a golden land.
A few meters away, roadblocks and state trooper cars close off the bridge, which usually sees heavy border traffic. National Guard soldiers drive across the road in all-terrain vehicles. One of the entry gates is still open for the hundreds of officials that the government in Washington has sent to Texas.
They are charged with quickly bringing the situation back under control to avoid a repeat of further disturbing images from which President Biden is trying to distance himself.
His homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has come to make the administration's message clear once again: "Don't come." And those who have arrived in Del Rio are now being firmly sent back.
Thousands of people have been camping under a bridge in Del Rio in disastrous conditions
Anger at politicians
Since Sunday, Haitians have been being flown back to their country, and thousands more are being transferred to other places in the US, where a decision will be taken on their status.
The vast majority of them, however, Mayorkas repeats, are to be sent back to their native countries. But despite the sealed-off bridge, people are still trying to get in. Videos have shown border guards on horseback yelling at migrants in the Rio Grande river to turn back and using their reins as whips to deter them.
The White House has said it's appalled by the scenes. But they are now out there for all to see, just like the images of tens of thousands of migrants camped under the bridge. By the end of the week, the Border Patrol wants to have broken up the camp.
Frank Lopez isn't surprised by any of it — neither the chaos nor the many people who have flocked to the city, where he has lived for a long time. "The only people surprised by this are the politicians," said the 55-year-old, who himself worked for a long time as a border agent.
For him, the city of Del Rio, which has a population of 35,000, is a war zone. And in his view, the president is to blame for promising open borders. Standing at the sealed bridge where he regularly films short videos for his Facebook page, Lopez says a promise like that is just calling for a disaster.
Lopez doesn't have much time, but he's in the mood to talk. The Trump supporter is angry at politicians, and not just the Democrats, though he says Trump at least raised pressure on Mexico.
But, Lopez says, none of the lawmakers have a clue about how such decisions affect the lives of citizens. Life in Del Rio is going on as usual with football games on the weekend and residents going about their daily routines. But the presence of so many migrants scares people, Lopez says, adding that more will be pouring in if the country doesn't deport people as a matter of course. There are migration laws in place, Lopez says. "We aren't heartless, but we simply can't help everyone. There are limits."
Immigration a hot-button issue
For conservatives like Lopez, those limits have long since been reached. Border crossings in the US have reached their highest level in decades. More than 200,000 undocumented people were apprehended by Border Patrol in August, and more than 1.5 million since last October.
Republicans blame Biden's immigration policies. Ted Cruz, a senator in Texas, had himself filmed under the bridge and added the hashtag #BidenBorderCrisis.
The immigration debate will be one of the most contentious issues in next year's midterm elections. And President Biden has yet to find a way out of the dilemma of wanting to act humanely while sticking to his "don't come" rhetoric, which would seem to point rather toward policies designed to keep migrants out.
Human rights organizations and the left wing of the Democrats have criticized the president for the deportation flights to Haiti. "This is completely inhumane. Haitians are experiencing a crisis after crisis and deserve compassion," congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted.
Roberte Marquez, who goes by the pseudonym Robenz, sums it up in a slogan on a large canvas in front of the border fence in Del Rio. "Stop the deportations," it says in black letters on an orange and white background. Brushes and paint lie ready on his pickup truck. Robenz is here because he wants to show solidarity "with my brothers under the bridge."
Originally from Mexico, he's now an American citizen and has been working for years with migrants. Jobs would help them, Robenz says. But many Americans fear losing their jobs, which is precisely the argument used by Republicans to justify restrictive immigration policies. Still, there are many jobs in the country done by undocumented people. Robenz didn't approve of Trump's policies, and he's not yet sure about Biden either. But sending people back will achieve nothing, Robenz says. "They'll come back."
For Charly and Edlin, the journey continues, for now. After some delay, the bus organized by the volunteers in Del Rio rounds the corner. Both of them find seats on it. It takes them a little deeper into America. But it's unclear whether they will be allowed to stay.
This article has been translated from German.
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, MARIA VERZA and JUAN A. LOZANO
1 of 21
DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — Three hours after being freed from a giant migrant camp under an international bridge, Mackenson Veillard stood outside a gas station and took stock of his sudden good fortune as he and his pregnant wife waited for a Greyhound bus to take them to a cousin in San Antonio.
The couple camped with thousands for a week under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas, sleeping on concrete and getting by on bread and bottled water.
“I felt so stressed,” Veillard, 25, said this week. “But now, I feel better. It’s like I’m starting a new life.”
Many Haitian migrants in Del Rio are being released in the United States, according to two U.S. officials, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion to Haiti.
Haitians have been freed on a “very, very large scale” in recent days, one official said Tuesday. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, put the figure in the thousands.
Many have been released with notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days, an outcome that requires less processing time from Border Patrol agents than ordering an appearance in immigration court and points to the speed at which authorities are moving.
The releases come despite a massive effort to expel Haitians on flights under pandemic-related authority that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum. A third U.S. official not authorized to discuss operations said there were seven daily flights to Haiti planned starting Wednesday.
MORE ON BORDER CRISIS
– White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants
Ten flights arrived in Haiti from Sunday to Tuesday in planes designed for 135 passengers, according to Haitian officials, who didn’t provide a complete count but said six of those flights carried 713 migrants combined.
The camp held more than 14,000 people over the weekend, according to some estimates. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, during a visit Tuesday to Del Rio, said the county’s top official told him the most recent tally was about 8,600 migrants. U.S. authorities have declined to say how many have been released in the U.S. in recent days.
The Homeland Security Department has been busing Haitians from Del Rio, a town of 35,000 people, to El Paso, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border, and this week added flights to Tucson, Arizona, the official said. They are processed by the Border Patrol at those locations.
Criteria for deciding who is flown to Haiti and who is released in the U.S. is a mystery but two officials said single adults were a priority. If previous handling of asylum-seekers is any guide, the administration is more likely to release those deemed vulnerable, including pregnant women, families with young children and those with medical issues.
The Biden administration exempts unaccompanied children from expulsion flights on humanitarian grounds.
Wilgens Jean and his wife Junia Michel waited in Del Rio this week for relatives to send the $439 in bus fare to get to Springfield, Ohio, where Jean’s brother lives. Michel, who is pregnant, huddled under the little shade the parking lot had to offer from the brutal heat. Her only request was for sunscreen that she softly rubbed on her pregnant belly.
On the concrete in front of them lay two backpacks and a black garbage bag which held everything the couple owns. The pair left in Haiti in April and were in the Del Rio camp for five days. Jean said because his wife is expecting, they were released from the camp on Monday.
“I entered by crossing the river,” Jean said. “Immigration gave me a ticket.”
The system is a “black box,” said Wade McMullen, an attorney with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, who was in Del Rio. “Right now, we have no official access to understand what processes are under way, what protections are being provided for the migrants.”
Accounts of wide-scale releases — some observed at the Del Rio bus station by Associated Press journalists -- are at odds with statements Monday by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who traveled to Del Rio to promise swift action.
“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” he said at a news conference.
Homeland Security, asked to comment on releases in the United States, said Wednesday that migrants who are not immediately expelled to Haiti may be detained or released with a notice to appear in immigration court or report to an immigration office, depending on available custody space.
“The Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” the department said in a statement. “Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion.”
Meanwhile, Mexico has begun busing and flying Haitian migrants away from the U.S. border, signaling a new level of support for the United States as the camp presented President Joe Biden with a humanitarian and increasingly political challenge.
The White House is facing sharp bipartisan condemnation. Republicans say Biden administration policies led Haitians to believe they would get asylum. Democrats are expressing outrage after images went viral this week of Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics against the migrants.
About 200 migrants were released on Monday in Del Rio. About 50 of them, mostly Haitian and many pregnant or with small children, boarded a bus to Houston, from where they would fly to destinations across the country. The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition advocacy group arranged the charter bus and supplied sack lunches of a sandwich and cookies.
After an initial stay with family in San Antonio, Veillard eventually hopes to get to New York City to live with his sister. He will take any job he can find to support his growing family.
Veillard and his wife left Haiti four years ago and had been living in Brazil until they began their journey to the United States in June, much of it on foot.
“I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow but now I feel lucky,” he said.
___
Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Maria Verza in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Evens Sanon from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, MARIA VERZA and JUAN A. LOZANO
1 of 35
DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — Many Haitian migrants camped in a small Texas border town are being released in the United States, two U.S. officials said Tuesday, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion.
Haitians have been freed on a “very, very large scale” in recent days, according to one U.S. official with direct knowledge of operations. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, put the figure in the thousands.
Many have been released with notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days, an outcome that requires less processing time from Border Patrol agents than ordering an appearance in immigration court and points to the speed at which authorities are moving, the official said.
The Homeland Security Department has been busing Haitians from Del Rio to El Paso, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border, and this week added flights to Tucson, Arizona, the official said. They are processed by the Border Patrol at those locations.
A second U.S. official, also with direct knowledge and speaking on the condition of anonymity, said large numbers of Haitians were being processed under immigration laws and not being placed on expulsion flights to Haiti that started Sunday. The official couldn’t be more specific about how many.
U.S. authorities scrambled in recent days for buses to Tucson but resorted to flights when they couldn’t find enough transportation contractors. Coast Guard planes took Haitians from Del Rio to El Paso.
The releases in the U.S. were occurring despite a massive effort to expel Haitians on flights to Haiti under pandemic-related authority that denies migrants an opportunity to seek asylum. A third U.S. official not authorized to discuss operations said there were seven daily flights to Haiti planned starting Wednesday.
Accounts of wide-scale releases - some observed at the Del Rio bus station by Associated Press journalists - are at odds with statements a day earlier by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who traveled to Del Rio to promise swift action.
“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” he said at a Monday news conference.
Homeland Security, asked to comment on releases in the United States, said Wednesday that migrants who are not immediately expelled to Haiti may be detained or released with a notice to appear in immigration court or report to an immigration office, depending on available custody space. The department declined to say how many have been released.
“The Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” the department said in a statement. “Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion. Irregular migration poses a significant threat to the health and welfare of border communities and to the lives of migrants themselves, and should not be attempted.”
The releases come amid a quick effort to empty the camp under a bridge that, according to some estimates, held more than 14,000 people over the weekend in a town of 35,000 people. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, during a visit Tuesday to Del Rio, said the county’s top official told him the most recent tally at the camp was about 8,600 migrants.
Meanwhile, Mexico has begun busing and flying Haitian migrants away from the U.S. border, authorities said Tuesday, signaling a new level of support for the United States as the camp presented President Joe Biden with a humanitarian and increasingly political challenge.
The White House is facing sharp bipartisan condemnation. Republicans say Biden administration policies led Haitians to believe they would get asylum. Democrats are expressing outrage after images went viral this week of Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics against the migrants.
Mexico has helped at key moments before. It intensified patrols to stop unaccompanied Central American children from reaching the Texas border in 2014, allowed tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration courts in 2019 and, just last month, began deporting Central American migrants to Guatemala after the Biden administration flew them to southern Mexico.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, said Tuesday he had spoken with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about the Haitians’ situation. Ebrard said most of the Haitians already had refugee status in Chile or Brazil and weren’t seeking it in Mexico.
“What they are asking for is to be allowed to pass freely through Mexico to the United States,” Ebrard said.
Two Mexican federal officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed Mexico’s actions.
One of the officials said three busloads of migrants left Acuña on Tuesday morning for Piedras Negras, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) down the border, where they boarded a flight to the southern city of Villahermosa in the state of Tabasco.
The other official said there was a flight Monday from the northern city of Monterrey to the southern city of Tapachula near the Guatemala border. Tapachula is home to the largest immigrant detention center in Latin America. The flight carried about 100 migrants who had been picked up around the bus station in Monterrey, a hub for various routes north to the U.S. border.
The second official said the plan was to move to Tapachula all Haitians who already solicited asylum in Mexico.
The Haitian migrants who are already in Mexico’s detention centers and have not requested asylum will be the first to be flown directly to Haiti once Mexico begins those flights, according to the official.
Around Ciudad Acuña, Mexican authorities were stepping up efforts to move migrants away from the border. There were detentions overnight by immigration agents and raids on hotels known to house migrants.
“All of a sudden they knocked on the door and (yelled) ‘immigration,’ ‘police,’ as if they were looking for drug traffickers,” said Freddy Registre, a 37-year-old Venezuelan staying at one hotel with his Haitian wife, Vedette Dollard. The couple was surprised at midnight.
Authorities took four people plus others who were outside the hotel, he said. “They took our telephones to investigate and took us to the immigration offices, took our photos,” Registre said. They were held overnight but finally were given their phones back and released. Authorities gave them two options: leave Mexico or return to Tapachula.
On Tuesday afternoon, they decided to leave town. They bought tickets for a bus ride to the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, planning to continue to Tapachula where they had already applied for asylum.
Others left without being told. Small groups arrived at Ciudad Acuña’s bus station to buy tickets to Veracruz, Monterrey and Mexico City. The same bus lines prohibited from selling them tickets for rides north through Mexico, sold them tickets to head south without issue.
In Haiti, dozens of migrants upset about being deported from the U.S. tried to rush back into a plane that landed Tuesday afternoon in Port-au-Prince as they yelled at authorities. A security guard closed the plane door in time as some deportees began throwing rocks and shoes at the plane. Several of them lost their belongings in the scuffle as police arrived. The group was disembarking from one of three flights scheduled for the day.
___
Verza reported from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, and Spagat from San Diego. Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson in Mexico City, Felix Marquez in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Evens Sanon from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Michael Balsamo in Washington, Michael R. Sisak in New York and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, also contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
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