By James Blears
The Haitian flights start today (Sunday) and there will be eight per day until the backlog is cleared, depending on the capacity of how many can be received by Haiti in staggered stages. As things stand, more than 10,000 men, women and children are in a camp under a bridge linking Cuidad Acuna in Mexico and Del Rio in Texas. This location has no running water apart from the Rio Grande, sanitation, food or other basic facilities, in sweltering temperatures reaching 37 degrees centigrade. Refugees are wading and fording the river waist high, temporarily going back into Mexico to buy daily necessities. And the only way theyre staying cool is bathing in the river. The situation remains desperate, critical and bordering on volatile. Its mostly Hatitians fleeing the ravages of the recent earthquake and momentous political upheaval including a Presidential assassination. But there are also Hondurans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Peruvians. Last month almost two hundred thousand undocumented migrants were detained at the Mexican Border….an all-time record.
The Mexican Government is urging Washington to fund a jobs program to keep desperate unemployed and often destitute people in their countries of origin, basically at home. US President Joe Biden is pledging immigration reform, but its not coming fast enough for these caravans of migrants. Hes already established a task force to reunite hundreds of unaccompanied children with their families. The Mexican Government has deployed thousands of National Guard, trying to stem this tidal wave of humanity. This is a humanitarian crisis involving an exodus of peoples living south of the US Border, who are seeking a better life in the United States. They are desperate and determined.
