by Rachel Sharp at The Daily Mail
Thousands of Haitian migrants are being freed into the US on a ‘very, very large scale’ rather than being flown out on deportation flights as the Biden administration promised, according to officials.
Two US officials with knowledge of the situation in Del Rio – where around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants were camped out under a bridge at the weekend after crossing into the US from Mexico – said thousands have been released into the US with notices to appear at an immigration court in 60 days’ time.
Others have been sent on buses and planes to other parts of the US to be processed by Border Patrol agents there, they said.
This purported reality on the ground is drastically at odds with the public statements the Biden administration has made in recent days in an effort to get a handle on the ever-increasing migrant crisis at the US’s southern border.
The official line is that Haitians are being expelled from the US back to the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation under a Donald Trump-era rule.
Under Title 42, migrants can be repatriated to their home nations without the possibility of requesting asylum due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted Monday that migrants entering the US illegally will be sent back to their home countries.
‘If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,’ he said at a press conference.
Mayorkas then went one step further Tuesday, insisting that the border is now ‘closed’ to migrants.
Many of the thousands of migrants who have gathered in Del Rio in recent days fled Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and have been living in South American countries including Brazil and Chile. But since these nations have been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, many Haitians have traveled up through South America and Mexico to seek asylum in the US…
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