Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed on Friday that nearly 30,000 Haitian migrants have been encountered on the US-Mexi...
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed on Friday that nearly 30,000 Haitian migrants have been encountered on the US-Mexico border as they try to enter the country.
Additionally he noted that the camp under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas, which serves the length of the border, has been emptied.
'Nearly 30,000 migrants have been encountered at Del Rio since September 9 with the highest number one time reaching approximately 15,000,' he said at the daily White House press briefing.
Meanwhile the BBC reported nearly 19,000 mostly Haitian migrants are heading towards the US. They are in Colombia waiting to cross the border to Panama, Colombian officials say.
But, Mayorkas noted, 'today, we have no migrants remaining in the camp.'
He revealed that 2,000 have been expelled on 17 flights, 8,000 have returned to Haiti voluntarily, 12,4000 are having their cases heard and 5,000 being processed
That leaves 2,600 missing. Officials have said some have returned to Mexico.
It comes after President Joe Biden on Friday vowed the border agents on horseback who tried to stop migrants crossing the into the US will 'pay' and face the ‘consequences’ of their actions.
The president called the photos of agents on horseback intercepting migrants 'horrible to see'.
However the photographer who took the controversial images said the border agents did not whip the Haitian migrants – after it was wrongly and widely reported that they did.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed on Friday that nearly 30,000 Haitian migrants have been encountered on the US-Mexico border
Biden, who failed to address how to solve the border crisis in his remarks, said: ‘It was horrible what to see, as you saw, to see people treat like they did - horses running them over, people being strapped.
‘It's outrageous. I promise you those people will pay. There will be investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It's an embarrassment.
'But beyond an embarrassment is dangerous, it's wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world, and sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are.
He was slammed by Meghan McCain in her DailyMail.com column who blamed him for encouraging the 15,000 Haitian migrants to come to the US.
‘But if Biden started actively sending migrants home, he would offend The Squad and their progressive constituencies whose wrath seems to terrify him,’ she said.
Photographer Paul Ratje, who took the images, said he didn't see anyone being whipped.
'I've never seen them whip anyone,' Ratje told KTSM-TV. The still images actually depict the mounted agents swinging the long reins of their horses, not holding whips.
'He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you're looking at the picture,' said Ratje, who shot the photos from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river.
It came as Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday compared the images to the brutality of slavery.
Harris went beyond earlier comments labeling the treatment 'horrible,' during an appearance on ABC's 'The View'.
'Human beings should not be treated that way and as we all know it also evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the indigenous people of our country. Has been used against African Americans during times of slavery, and so I'm glad to know that that [Alejandro] Mayorkas the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is taking it very seriously,' she said.
The photo on the left shows the makeshift migrant camp under the Del Rio bridge in Texas teeming with people on Tuesday. On the right, workers clear debris from the site on Friday
A Texas judge who has been keeping tabs on the number of migrants in the camp said only 'stragglers' remained of up to 15,000 people who camped on the banks of the Rio Grande
Workers remove barricades from the Port of Entry after the migrant camp was cleared along International Bridge in Del Rio. Picture taken with a drone
Heavy machinery was brought in on Friday to level the site of the camp and remove piles of debris after the removal of the migrants
Migrants walk through a makeshift border camp along the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas
Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens, who has been keeping tabs on the number of people in the encampment, said only 'stragglers' remained of up to 15,000 people who camped on the banks of the Rio Grande bordering Mexico a week ago.
‘The last body was removed from the camp at 11:41 am,’ Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez told DailyMail.com.
Throughout the morning the last of those who had taken up residence in the squalid camp by the Del Rio International Bridge were bused to the offices of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition in Del Rio.
There they were processed before being placed on charter buses bound for Houston or San Antonio. They have ten days to report to authorities in those cities and given a court date.
Some sat outside the Coalition’s single story building for hours, others were placed on a bus within minutes of arriving. One couple — the one dreadlocked woman clearly in some distress — got a seat almost immediately.
A Reuters witness said the shanty town-like jumble of makeshift shelters and tents had all but disappeared by Friday afternoon, with workers clearing the last debris, as seen in newly released photos from the scene.
It's a dramatic change from last Saturday, when the number peaked as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration's policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing connecting Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
At a news conference, Del Rio Mayor Buno Lozano called it 'phenomenal news.'
Many of the migrants face expulsion because they are not covered by protections recently extended by the Biden administration to the more than 100,000 Haitian migrants already in the US, citing security concerns and social unrest in the Western Hemisphere´s poorest country.
A man carries a child as he waits in line with other migrants seeking asylum in the US to board a bus to Houston from Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition after being released from US Customs and Border Protection on Friday
Several hundred Haitian have been released from detention in Texas on Friday
Images of a US border guard on horseback unfurling a whip-like cord against Haitian migrants crossing the Rio Grande sparked widespread outrage
As well as the Biden administration's contentious use of expulsion flights that have carried at least 1,400 back to instability in Haiti, Mexico has also sought to bus and fly Haitians to its southern states, far from the US border.
Thousands more are in US detention centers and several hundred have been released in Texas.
On Friday, Reuters reported that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had formally asked Brazil to receive some of the Haitians from the camp, according to two sources with knowledge of the request.
Many of the Haitians arriving at the US border had previously lived in Brazil and Chile, while others have transited through the South American countries.
President Joe Biden has faced widespread criticism in recent days over the expulsions to Haiti, including in a sternly worded resignation letter from the US Special Envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, who said the Caribbean nation was a collapsed state.
The US government in May extended temporary protection from deportation to Haitians in the United States, citing a political crisis, rights abuses, crime, and lack of access to food, water, and healthcare in the Western hemisphere's poorest country.
Since then, Haiti's president has been assassinated and it suffered a destructive earthquake.
Foote's resignation followed widespread outrage stirred up by images of a US border guard on horseback unfurling a whip-like cord against Haitian migrants.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said the way the agents used their horses was 'horrible' and that 'people will pay' as a result. The agents have been assigned to administrative duties while the administration investigates.
'There will be consequences,' Biden told reporters. 'It's an embarrassment, but it's beyond an embarrassment - it's dangerous, it's wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world and sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are.'
At least five more flights taking Haitians from the border camp were scheduled on Friday, flight tracking website Flightaware showed.
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