DEL RIO, Texas — Haitian migrants milled around makeshift shelters held up with giant reeds, as wind blew dust through the camp littered with plastic bottles and overflowing trash bags. Some migrants sat on plastic paint cans or the ground while others hung clothes to dry on the bamboo-like carrizo cane.
All waited to learn their fate at a dramatically diminished Texas border encampment where almost 15,000 migrants had gathered just days ago under a bridge between Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
About 4,000 remained on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security officials said. The number had peaked on Saturday, as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the crossing.
But the United States and Mexico appeared eager to end the increasingly politicized humanitarian situation that prompted the resignation of the U.S. special envoy to Haiti and fresh condemnation from civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton and UNICEF.
DHS officials said about 1,400 migrants had been sent to Haiti on 13 flights, rapidly expelled under the pandemic public health authority known as Title 42. Another 3,200 were in U.S. custody and being processed, while several thousand have returned to Mexico, DHS officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to brief journalists about an ongoing operation.
Mexico’s immigration agency had estimated late Wednesday there were as many as 600 migrants in Ciudad Acuña. The riverside camp appeared to hold that many at its peak, while other migrants were scattered through the city in hotels and private homes. A city official said Wednesday that Mexican authorities had removed about 250 Haitian migrants from the city since Sunday evening. Still, “several thousand” migrants returning to Mexico from the Del Rio camp seemed an exaggeration.
Haitians camped in Mexico awoke Thursday surrounded by security forces, with a helicopter thundering overhead and state police trucks spaced every 30 feet or so between their tents and the water’s edge.
After anxious minutes of indecision, dozens of families hurried into the river to cross at a point where there was only one municipal police vehicle, calculating it was better to take their chances with U.S. authorities.
Guileme Paterson, a 36-year-old from Haiti, appeared dazed. “It is a difficult moment,” she said before beginning to cross the Rio Grande with her husband and their four children.
“Things are going badly,” said Michou Petion, carrying her 2-year-old son in her arms toward the river. Her husband carried bags of belongings and several pairs of sneakers dangled around his neck.
“The U.S. is deporting a lot to Haiti, now I don’t know if I can enter or leave,” Petion said.
Texas Department of Public Safety officials allowed journalists to visit the camp later Thursday but prevented them from talking to migrants. For those who remained, food, shelter and medical care was being provided to those who need it, U.S. officials said.
At one point, two men riding in an ATV emblazoned with “Homeland Security” approached a group of women holding infants and said in Spanish: “We have food for the baby.” The women approached the men, who handed them a small container.
A low dam that had been used to cross from Mexico into the U.S. was closed, and a worker picked up mounds of discarded belongings that included cell phone chargers, clothing and Styrofoam containers.
