CIUDAD ACUÑA – Haitians fleeing a country hammered by political turmoil and two natural disasters made up most of over 10 000 migrants sleeping on the ground and desperate for food in a squalid camp under a bridge in southern Texas on Friday.
In a growing humanitarian and political challenge for United States president Joe Biden, the Haitians were joined by Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans under the Del Rio International Bridge connecting Mexico to south Texas. They slept under light blankets. A few pitched small tents.
More migrants were expected after long and harrowing journeys through Mexico and Central and South America.
Officials on both sides of the U.S. border with Mexico said most of the migrants were Haitians.
Several Haitians told Reuters they followed instructions shared on WhatsApp by other Haitians looking for a safe route to avoid being caught by Mexican authorities.
James Pierre, a 28-year-old Haitian interviewed in Del Rio, Texas, shared a WhatsApp list of 15 stops through Mexico – culminating in Ciudad Acuña, just across from Del Rio – that he said was circulating among migrants.
“Those ahead sent directions by phone,” Pierre said. “I helped people coming behind me.”
Still, he said, he got lost for days in the mountains and survived on little, but water and fruit.
Haiti’s president Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July and the country was battered by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and a powerful storm in August.
Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said the number of migrants under the bridge that crosses into Mexico had jumped by around 2 000 during the day on Thursday, from 8 200 in the morning to 10 503 by the evening.
Most of the migrants at the camp appeared to be men, but women nursing or carrying kids also could be seen.
Reuters witnessed hundreds of migrants wading through the shallow Rio Grande River, which divides the two countries, back into Mexico to stock up on essentials they say they are not receiving on the American side.
Two Haitian migrants said a hot meal was provided by U.S. officials on Thursday night, but Haitian migrant Paul Marie-Samise, 32, said he missed it.
Temperatures were forecast to stay above 38 degrees Celsius in coming days.
The U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement on Thursday it was increasing staffing in Del Rio and providing drinking water, towels and portable toilets as migrants wait to be transported to U.S. facilities.
Biden, a Democrat who took office in January this year, pledged a more humane approach to immigration than that of former president Donald Trump, whose fellow Republicans seized on the camp as evidence Biden’s policies were drawing more migrants.
(Reuters)
