Enlarge image
Migrants board plane in Del Rio: The US authorities announced daily return flights for refugees from Haiti
Photo: MARCO BELLO / REUTERS
The US border town of Del Rio has become a new focal point of the US migration crisis.
Within a few days, a huge, makeshift camp was built there under a bridge.
With thousands of people seeking refuge in the community, the US now wants to get people out of the country quickly and in large numbers.
In the next 24 hours, up to 3,000 people should be relocated to other locations, announced the head of the US border patrol, Raul Ortiz, on Sunday afternoon.
From there, most of them are brought back to their home countries by air - the majority of the migrants come from the desperately poor Caribbean state of Haiti.
"Our goal is to process the 12,662 migrants that we have here under the bridge as quickly as possible in the next six to seven days," Ortiz said at a press conference.
You work with countries of origin and transit countries.
Numerous human rights organizations sharply criticize the actions of the US government.
Daily return flights to Haiti planned
Ortiz also directed clear words to people trying to cross the border into the USA: "They will be taken away and sent back to their country of origin, as our current law provides." Resettled city on the border with Mexico.
"We assume that this number will increase in the coming days," said Ortiz.
The US authorities announced daily return flights for the migrants from Haiti.
The first plane landed in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Sunday.
Officials there expressed concern about a possible large influx of returning migrants.
In the past few days, thousands of migrants had gathered under the bridge that spans the Rio Grande.
The city's mayor spoke of more than 14,500 people on Saturday.
On Sunday it was reportedly still well over 10,000.
They stay there in makeshift tents and live in inhumane conditions.
When migrants arrive, the border guards would give them a numbered ticket, the Texas Tribune reported.
Then they would have to wait for their number to be called.
Hundreds of additional border guards were sent to the region
US Border Patrol's Ortiz said no new migrants had crossed the river at this point since Sunday.
At the same time, hundreds of border guards were dispatched to the area to deal with the onslaught.
According to Ortiz, there was also a huge rush in 2019.
"It just wasn't the same extent as it was the past four or five days," he said.
The migrants have now heard from others that the border is easy to cross at the point around the bridge.
But what exactly triggered the huge rush remained open.
Haitians have been coming to the US via South America for a number of years.
Many of them fled the country after the devastating earthquake in 2010.
Only in mid-August did the earth shake violently again, more than 2000 people died.
Chaos and gang violence prevail in the Caribbean country.
In July, President Jovenel Moïse was shot dead in his residence near Port-au-Prince.
US President Joe Biden has come under pressure because of the increasing number of migrants from Haiti in the border area between the US and Mexico.
The Democrat had withdrawn a large part of the rigid measures taken by his predecessor Donald Trump.
Now he is being accused by critics that his policies increase illegal migration.
asc / dpa / Reuters
