By Julia Ainsley - NBC News
Now that more than 10,000 migrants, mainly Haitians, are waiting to apply for asylum under an international bridge Del Rio, Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to
increase deportation flights to Haiti the next week,
according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.
ICE plans to carry out eight deportation flights to Haiti next
week
and will then
increase that number to 10 per week,
according to one of the documents, in response to the increase in recent days in the arrival of migrants from this island.
Flights had previously been paralyzed by the Joe Biden Administration in response to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti on August 14.
A single deportation flight can transport about 135 migrants, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said.
In addition to the deportation flights, ICE will also initiate what are known as lateral flights to transfer Haitian migrants to other sectors of the United States border for processing, in order to alleviate overcrowding in Del Rio, according to another document.
The mayor of this border city declared an emergency on Friday due to the incessant arrival of immigrants.
Most of those who arrive do not come directly from the island nation, said two DHS officials, but have been living in South America for several years, and are now being transferred to that area of the Texas border by Mexican drug cartels.
As one of the officials explained, they cannot be deported back to South American countries, so they will be sent to Haiti, although
most would land in a country they have not lived in for years and which has been devastated by the natural disasters
and the political crisis derived from the assassination of the president.
[Texas threatens to close the border to stop 8,000 migrants waiting under a bridge to request asylum]
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, criticized the Biden Administration for its decision to stop deportation flights to Haiti, as it was drawing more people to Del Rio in his opinion.
Migrants seeking asylum in the United States walk along the Rio Grande near the International Bridge on the border with Mexico while waiting to be processed, in Del Rio, Texas, September 16, 2021. Go Nakamura / REUTERS
Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy organization for these immigrants, has said that the Biden Administration
should not deport Haitians "without offering them legal protection and the opportunity to seek asylum."
Spokesmen for ICE and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News.