Asylum seekers in Texas: USA are preparing deportation flights to Haiti

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Haitian refugees set up makeshift camps along the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas.

Photo: Eric Gay / dpa

In view of the thousands of refugees from Haiti and other countries in the US border town of Del Rio, the USA wants to increasingly bring people back to their homeland by plane. Additional transportation would be procured to increase the pace and capacity of flights to Haiti and other destinations in the region within the next 72 hours, the US Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday. Additional border guards were also to be dispatched to the city in the US state of Texas, which borders Mexico.

The Mayor of Del Rio, Bruno Lozano, had previously requested urgent federal aid because thousands of immigrants have gathered under the bridge that connects the United States and Mexico and crosses the Rio Grande River. Lozano said the majority of the people were from Haiti, entering the country illegally, and waiting to be picked up by the U.S. border protection agency. However, this is overwhelmed in view of the great rush.

The Ministry of Homeland Security now wants to redistribute asylum seekers to other places in the region in order to be able to deal with them more quickly.

This is to ensure that people would be expelled if they were illegally in the United States.

The White House has instructed the relevant US authorities to work with the Haitian and other governments in the region to provide help and support to the people upon their return.

Lozano, the mayor of Del Rio, a city of 36,000, is a Democrat, like US President Joe Biden.

However, months ago he criticized that it was completely inadequate how the federal government was dealing with the situation on the southern border of the United States.

In the past few months, the number of immigrants apprehended on the border with Mexico has risen rapidly.

nek / dpa