The images of several American agents on horseback chasing, with fusa in hand, Haitian immigrants on the border with Mexico, have led the world leaving the exodus that has caused the serious humanitarian crisis that Haiti is going through. Recent natural disasters and political instability triggered after the magnicide of President Jovenel Moise, have pushed thousands of Haitians to leave their homes and embark on a dangerous odyssey who, in most cases, ends in the same place where it started. With the accomplice aid of Mexico, the US government has deported more than one million people from March 2020, taking advantage of the controversial article 42 of the Federal Health Law, which authorizes these practices in a health emergency context.
Around 13,000 Haitians crowd these days under the international bridge that connects the river with the Mexican city Acuña, hoping to obtain shelter in the US. The most cautious prefer to wait on the Mexican side, despite being forced to malvivir in an improvised camp, without access to basic services, under extreme heat and at the mercy of trafficking mafias that make their despair in business. A mission of doctors without borders arrived last Monday to Ciudad Acuña and, as explained to the world Christopher Jankhöfer, NGO project coordinator in Mexico, "the situation is very precarious, there are many women and children, 98% are Haitian And the vast majority have been forced to cross more than 10 countries and have faced extortion and sexual violence. "
It is not clear why on this occasion they have come in mass to Ciudad Acuña, but as Jankhöfer says: "It seems that messages were disseminated in social networks by encouraging them to come under the false hope that the US would accept their income. They even disseminated instructions with the Bus routes that should take. It is what happens with new technologies, messages are distributed quickly that are not real ". The pressure at other border points is also evident. As explained to the world Sister Catalina Carmona, director of the Migrant House 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' of the City of Reynosa, "We are at the highest point of the entire pandemic, in recent weeks has been amazing the number of Haitian refugees who have reached here. "
The hostel that regrets the religious has a capacity to welcome 100 people and, as explained: "Now we have about 130 and there are another 5,000 migrants spread across the city." At the other end of the extensive border, in the city of Tijuana, the situation is something different, just as aimed at the world, Father Gustava Banda, founder of the migrant sanctuary 'Little Haiti': "Here you are barely left Haitians because they have been Let him advise and have waited his turn to cross legally, what we do are many Central Americans, around 800 and, in the coming weeks, could be almost double, since we are receiving about 100 deported a day. "
The pandemic has triggered the migratory flows in the region until reaching historical figures, with 147,000 undocumented detained in Mexico between January and August of this year, the triple that during the 2020. Parallel to the increase in the arrival of migrants, they have also skyrocket Deportations for the application of Article 42, a practice that according to MSF denouncement, "exploits the pandemic as a way to restrict asylum law" and therefore claims to the US "suspending its expulsion flights to Haiti for humanitarian reasons." Despite the complaints of NGOs, the Biden Government seems to have opted to give continuity to this policy encouraged by Donald Trump as an alternative to the Wall on the border that he could never build.
In a telephone conversation maintained on Tuesday between the Mexican Chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, and the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, the two leaders agreed on the need to reach "a regional agreement" to "stop the flow of irregular migration". While at the border between Panama and Colombia, the formation of a caravan of 19,000 Haitians has been confirmed, which could reach the Rio Bravo in the coming months, the US continues to strengthen the presence of migratory agents and multiplying the output of repatriation flights towards Haiti.
Date Of Update: 23 September 2021, 03:47
