Over the past few weeks, the migration and eventual dissolution of a large group of Haitians made headlines for their involvement in the controversial conversation on immigration. At its peak, the encampment in Del Rio, Texas, was 15,000 strong. Images surfaced in the following days that revealed they were stuck in what is known as “no man’s land.”
Haiti has been wrought with turmoil over the last year from political unrest, President Jovenel Moise’s assassination and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 2,200 and has left approximately 650,000 in need. With a country in ruin, many are seeking to find opportunities elsewhere. Only a third of former President Trump’s border wall is complete, leaving a pathway for these migrants to wade through the Rio Grande to cross the border in an attempt to find a new life.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with the Texas Tribune that, “This was the result of an unprecedented movement of a very large number of people traveling to a single point of the border within a matter of a few days.” Within those few days, the thousands of migrants camping under a bridge in Del Rio dwindled to zero. The Biden administration publicly stated the migrants should face immediate expulsion.
Two U.S. officials revealed to NBC News that some workers undercut this statement and began releasing the migrants. They began to put thousands on buses headed for El Paso and San Antonio. Under the CDC’s Title 42 authority, they began to put migrants onto flights to Haiti, leaving primarily from San Antonio, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona. Officials estimate that 2,000 people have returned to Haiti on these flights.
Migrants not flown back to Haiti have chosen to stay in Mexico. Officials approximate this group totals 8,000. Some of the migrants were released to appear at immigration offices within the next 60 days.
How the U.S. has dealt with the Haitian migrants provoked conversation on both sides of the political spectrum.
Patrice Lawrence, an advocate of UndocuBlack, told CNN that this situation could have been the distinction between the former administration and the current administration. She said, “The Biden administration could have made a strong statement in favor of due process and dignity by allowing for an orderly asylum process. Instead, it has opted for mass expulsions of vulnerable people.”
On the other hand, some people view this situation’s becoming as the failure, not the response. The fact that it happened in the first place and the response spanning multiple days left many outraged.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news conference in Val Verde County, “When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country when you have an administration that has abandoned any pretense of securing the border and securing our sovereignty, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me.”
Mayorkas confirmed there are 20,000 Haitians in Colombia, 3,000 in Peru and 1,500 in Panama waiting to seek asylum in the U.S. He said that this immigration surge is not unprecedented, as it happened before in 2019. Mayorkas would not be surprised if another surge like this happens again in the future.
Jose Guerrero, a sophomore at John Brown University, says, “This situation is similar to what happened in May 2020, where more than 2,532 migrants from different parts of South Africa and the Caribbean were stuck at the borders between Panama and Costa Rica due to COVID.”
Guerrero remembers this time vividly, as he is originally from Chitré, Herrera, Panama. He attends JBU through the Walton scholarship program. In response to his attendance at JBU, Guerrero said, “Being sincere, I still feel like I am living in a movie. Studying and living at a university in this way is just how it is in movies, not in Panama.”
Guerrero continued to give his sympathies for the immigrants in Del Rio and in Panama, saying, “Most of them are migrating for the same reasons: security and better life than what their countries could give them. It’s really a difficult situation what they face.”
Featured photo courtesy of Unsplash.