Angry scenes unfolded Tuesday at Haiti’s main airport among migrants deported from the United States, as pressure mounts on US President Joe Biden to stop deportations, which may be illegal, according to the United Nations.
Nearly 10,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, are still living in miserable conditions in a makeshift camp under a bridge over the Rio Grande River connecting the city of Del Rio in Texas with Ciudad Acunia in Mexico.
More than 4,000 migrants have been evacuated from the makeshift camp
In recent days, US authorities have evacuated at least 4,000 people and taken them to immigration detention centers. About 520 Haitians have been deported to their country on four flights, with deportations expected to continue, the US Department of Homeland Security said.
The deportees reacted angrily when they disembarked from a plane carrying them to Port-au-Prince airport, after weeks of trying to reach the United States via Latin America and spending thousands of dollars.
Yesterday they were behind where they started.
A group of men wearing white T-shirts ran back to the plane after disembarking in Port-au-Prince, with one of them trying to board again. The cabin crew closed the door of the aircraft before the man managed to enter it.
Anger over Haiti’s decision to accept deportations
Tensions escalated further as the Haitian government accepted the deportations.
“I am just angry with the government. We were told in prison that the Haitian government had signed to send us back to Haiti. “These officials are all bad people,” said Iran Melidor, one of the deportees.
The situation in Haiti – the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere – is particularly volatile after the assassination of the country’s president, while at the same time gang violence is on the rise and a strong earthquake has caused chaos in recent weeks.
Due to these circumstances, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Philippe Grady estimated on Tuesday that the deportation of immigrants from the United States to Haiti may violate international law, be a repatriation and expose people to danger.
Criticism of the brutality of the border guards
For his part, the leader of the majority of Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Sumer, criticized the decision of the Biden government, commenting that it “goes against the logic” to deport immigrants to Haiti. He also expressed outrage at the methods used by border guards to control immigrants at the US-Mexico border., following the publication of photos showing men on horseback using lasso to restrict immigrants.
US Vice President Kamala Harris said the situation was complicated and that the US needed to “do much more” to support the basic needs of the Haitian people.
«People want to stay at home, they do not want to leave, “but they leave when they can not meet their basic needs,” she said.
Republicans, who are eyeing the 2022 midterm elections and hoping to regain control of Congress, present the crisis and the creation of the makeshift camp in Texas as a result of the Democrats’ decision to lift some of the immigration restrictions. adopted by the previous administration of Donald Trump.
The number of people on the US-Mexico border is growing
Over the weekend, up to 14,000 migrants were stacked in makeshift camps, according to the UNHCR.
Yesterday the camp on the American side of the border expanded to a wooded area, where people sought refuge. Some families set up makeshift tents using twigs and leaves, while parents washed their children with jugs filled with water from the Rio Grande. Immigrants said there was a shortage of food and there were not enough chemical toilets in the camp.
Fearing deportations, some migrants have set up a new camp on the Mexican side of the border. However, the Mexican authorities are preparing to remove them by special flights or buses to the southern part of the country, mainly with the aim of easing the situation at the border.
Authorities in Mexico and Haiti discussed the management of the immigration crisis on Tuesday, with Mexico proposing that Haiti open consular posts in the cities of Tenosike and Talisman, near the border with Guatemala.
They also agreed to schedule repatriation flights to Haiti “for all people of Haitian descent wishing to return to their country”.
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