Thousands of Haitian migrants have left their camp on the Mexican-American border

Published on : 09/25/2021 – 07:25

Haitian migrants stranded on both sides of the US-Mexico border left their makeshift camps on Friday, September 24, according to the US government and AFP journalists there.

The last migrants who had been camping for a week in Ciudad Acuña, on the northern border of Mexico, withdrew after being turned back at the border with the United States, AFP observed Friday evening. They got into vans with their belongings and took them to shelters.

A little earlier, the American Minister of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas had announced, during a press conference at the White House, that “today we have no more migrants in the encampment under the bridge” of the city of Del Rio, Texas.

Nearly 15,000 people, including many Haitians, women and children, camped at the end of last week under the building located at the border.

Migrants turned back on horseback

About 2,000 people were deported by plane to Haiti, 8,000 returned voluntarily to Mexico, 5,000 were transferred to shelters and 12,400 were able to leave the site and will have to report to an immigration judge. to defend their asylum claim, said Alejandro Mayorkas.

In total, according to the American minister, 30,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, have arrived since September 9 in the small town on the border of Texas, where they were living in the heat and insalubrity after crossing the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña. .

This massive influx of migrants and the treatment suffered by some, pushed back by border police officers on horseback as they crossed the river, drew an avalanche of criticism from the Biden administration, deemed lax by the right and inhuman. by the left while Haiti is plunged into a political, security and humanitarian crisis.

In a snapshot taken Sunday by an AFP photographer, a border guard on horseback grabs a man by his t-shirt on the American shore. On another, he keeps a group at bay by turning his reins, in a threatening posture, to force them to turn back. These pictures, which have been around the world, have caused a stir in the United States.

Some saw migrants there equated to cattle, others recalled the mistreatment of African Americans by mounted police, prison guards or slave owners.

Biden promises “consequences” for these “scandalous” acts

Joe Biden, who had not yet spoken publicly on the subject, promised Friday that these agents would “pay” for these “scandalous” acts. “There will be an investigation, there will be consequences,” he told reporters. US authorities have already opened an investigation and temporarily suspended mounted border police operations around Del Rio.

Asked if he took responsibility for the “chaos” at the border, Joe Biden replied on Friday: “Of course I take responsibility for it. I’m the president. It was horrible (…) to see people treated that way “.

“It’s more than embarrassing. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong. It sends the wrong message to the world, the wrong message to us,” he said. “It’s not who we are,” added the Democrat, who had promised during his campaign to treat immigration issues humanely, to distinguish himself from Donald Trump.

These expulsions, authorized under the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, “are dictated by public health imperatives,” assured Alejandro Mayorkas. The government has not behaved in an “immoral” way, he added, stressing that the right to asylum was governed by strict rules.

With AFP