About ten thousand migrants were camping on Friday, September 17, under a bridge on the southern border of the United States. They arrived in Del Rio, Texas, crossing the Rio Grande River.
From less than 2,000 at the start of the week, they are now more than 10,500, according to the mayor of this border town, Bruno Lozano. These migrants “Are mainly from Haiti (…) they are just waiting to be stopped by the border guards” to start the procedures for a residence permit, he explained in a video posted on Twitter.
Friday, the democratic councilor, who expects thousands more arrivals, declared a state of emergency and closed the bridge to traffic.
“Extreme circumstances call for extreme responses”, he told the newspaper Texas Tribune : “There are women who give birth, people who pass out because of the temperature, they are a little aggressive and it is normal after all these days in the heat. “
Special treatment for families
In a statement, the border guards assured to have increased their staff in order to cope in a manner “Safe, humane and orderly” to the situation and have distributed drinking water, towels and portable toilets to migrants.
Once taken care of, “The vast majority of adults arriving alone and many families will be turned away under a sanitary rule” adopted at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to limit the spread of the virus, they added.
However, a federal judge on Thursday ordered the government not to turn back families in this context, which could complicate the task of the authorities, already faced with historic migratory flows on the border with Mexico. The government appealed the decision on Friday.
Biden’s silence blasted
More than 1.3 million migrants have been arrested at the border with Mexico since Joe Biden arrived at the White House, a level unprecedented in 20 years. The Republican opposition has accused President Biden for months of provoking a “Migration crisis” by relaxing the measures of his predecessor Donald Trump.
The situation in Del Rio offered him new arguments. After going there, Republican Senator Ted Cruz denounced “A disaster caused by Joe Biden”. According to him, migrants end up under the bridge “Because President Joe Biden made the political decision to cancel the deportation flights to Haiti” after the assassination in July of President Jovenel Moïse.
Nationals from this poor and unstable country still form a minority of arrivals to the United States, but their number has been increasing for several months.
Many Haitians left their country after the 2010 earthquake (which killed more than 200,000 people) and settled in Latin America, especially Brazil. But finding work and renewing a residence permit has become complicated for thousands of them who have headed north.
Sensitive to their difficulties, several Democratic voices were raised to ask the administration of Joe Biden to quickly resolve the situation in Del Rio. “These Haitian migrants have already suffered a lot during the dangerous journey to our border”, thus tweeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a figure of the left wing of the party. “The lack of eagerness to come to their aid is alarming. “
Despite calls from the mayor of Del Rio for a “Prompt government action” federal government, President Joe Biden and his ministers remain silent.
www.lemonde.fr