The Broken System of Humanity

Border patrol is mounted on horseback rounding up Haitian refugees with whips.

This is unfathomable cruelty towards people fleeing disaster and political ruin. The administration must stop this. pic.twitter.com/BSjT91NSj0

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) September 20, 2021

A picture is worth 1000 words. Sometimes.

Making his way past a crowd of hundreds and up dirt trails along the riverbank that reeked of human waste, he found his wife, Stephanie, in one of the scores of huts that migrants have built from the carrizo cane lining the waters. They have slept on the dirt inside the hut since making their way to this hot, chaotic camp of an estimated 14,000 migrants after a three-month slog, mainly by bus, through Chile, Central America and Mexico.

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Some 3,300 migrants have already been removed from the Del Rio camp to planes or detention centers, Border Patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz said at a news conference Sunday, and he expected to have 3,000 of approximately 12,600 additional migrants moved within a day. The rest should be gone within the week, he said.

“We are working around the clock to expeditiously move migrants out of the heat, elements and from underneath this bridge to our processing facilities in order to quickly process and remove individuals from the United States consistent with our laws and our policies,” Ortiz said.

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The influx at the border outpost 145 miles west of San Antonio has come since the U.S. temporarily halted expulsions to Haiti last month following a magnitude 7.2 earthquake, which struck a month after Haiti’s president was assassinated.

Nearly 28,000 Haitians have been intercepted by the Border Patrol for the fiscal year that ends this month, compared with 4,395 last fiscal year and 2,046 the year before. More were in camps in southern Mexico.

Del Rio Mayor Bruno “Ralphy” Lozano, a Democrat, declared a local state of emergency on Friday and announced authorities were closing the port of entry. He warned that with more migrants on the way, the camp was expected to reach 20,000. The city of 35,000 has already been the site of an anti-immigrant protest.

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He said he had heard about the deportation flights, but they would not deter him, he said.

“It doesn’t change my mind. I’ve got one thing on my mind: to get to my destination,” he said. He has family in South Florida, he said, where his father recently died, and he came hoping to arrive in time for the funeral on Saturday.

“To get here, we had to cross 10 countries. We had to spend a lot of money. You become broke,” said Alex Bravener, 25, who lived in Chile and Brazil before arriving here with his wife and 3-year-old daughter last week.

“We know that we come here illegally, but we are human too, like the president. We have children,” he said. “If you’re going to deport us, why did you let us in here? If we’re already here, try to do something for us. The world knows we lost our president. We had our earthquakes.

“You deport us, what will we do in Haití? Some of us have been in another country for years. We don’t even know our family there. How are we going to live? We know America can help us to save our children.”

Who is wrong here?  The migrants fleeing Haiti, sure the U.S. will accomodate them?  The mayor and people of Del Rio, a town facing the influx of as many immigrants as there are residents in the down already?  The Border Patrol agents on horseback because they see no other way to stem the human tide that continues to press its way across the Rio Grande into Del Rio, where they will only be transferred (eventually) to San Antonio (145 miles away from Del Rio) and shipped back to Haiti 145 persons per flight?  A rough calculation indicates that will take 138 flights to relocate 20,000 Haitians.  Where do the rest stay while waiting transport to San Antonio?  In squalor around a bridge in Del Rio?  On the U.S. side of the river, waiting to go through an entry point?  In the river?  In Mexico?

From @elpasotimes: As the Haitians tried to climb onto the U.S. side of the river Sunday afternoon, a border agent shouted: "Let's go! Get out now! Back to Mexico!"

The agent swung his whip menacingly, charging his horse toward the men in the river.https://t.co/DejaoSQKwI

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) September 20, 2021

Mayor Lozano said that hot temperatures and the fluctuating level of the Rio Grande could make the camp dangerous. He also expressed fears of violence if the migrants were allowed to stay in Del Rio.

"If you have 10,000 people that begin to move in mass, it overwhelms every agent there," said Lozano. "Worst case scenario is if there are riots or an uprising."

The temperature in Del Rio has been in the high 90s and on Monday is forecasted to hit 105 degrees. Haitians interviewed said their primary concerns were securing enough food and water and having a place to sleep in the camp.

I don't like the pictures of men on horseback whipping men on the ground.  It's the medieval knights brutalizing the peasants, all over again.  But the picture hardly tells the tale, and is hardly the original sin here, or the most venal sin.  This situation is far worse than a dozen men on horses.