An immigration crisis in Del Rio, Tex.

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2021

⏱️ ? minutes

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Summary

Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants are crossing into the U.S. from the southwest border of Texas. When they arrive, they face rough territory: hostile law enforcement, mass airlifts for deportations, and a squalid, overcrowded migrant camp in the U.S.

Crossing the Rio Grande into Texas as a Haitian migrant is a treacherous journey. That became apparent after images came out of U.S. Border Patrol agents using whips and horses to police the border.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also made it clear that there will be law and order conditions where agents are seeing an influx of travelers. This also comes at a time when the Biden administration has begun deporting Haitian nationals in droves.

Arelis R. Hernández covers the southern U.S. border for The Post. She reports from the Rio Grande, giving a glimpse into what life is like on the border and explaining the Trump-era policy under which mass expulsions are taking place.

To learn more about Title 42, the public health order that President Biden has kept in place to expel migrants out of the United States, listen to “Marooned in Matamoros,” a two-part documentary series from Hernández and Post Reports editor Ted Muldoon. It’s about a woman’s treacherous journey from El Salvador to the Matamoros encampment in Mexico.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm standing in the middle of the Rio Grande.
0:11.8	Perplex, somewhat stupified by the image in front of me.
0:18.7	You're hearing Arles Hernandez who covers border immigration for the post, and she's
0:23.6	physically standing right between the U.S. and Mexico.
0:27.4	Hundreds, if not thousands of people, are moving in front of me, sort of trudging through
0:33.9	a swift but low current, carrying things on their head like boxes of food, or in some
0:40.5	cases, mattresses.
0:42.1	Today, we're going to take you to the Southwestern border, where thousands of mostly Haitian
0:47.3	migrants have crossed the Rio Grande into Texas.
0:50.9	They've made camp under an international bridge, even as the U.S. tries to deport them
0:56.0	by the plane load.
0:59.0	From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.
1:02.8	I'm Emma Talkoff, it's Wednesday, September 22.
1:10.7	In Del Rio, Texas, on the U.S. border, thousands of people have crossed over for Mexico.
1:16.6	After surrendering themselves to border patrol, they're just waiting while their papers
1:20.6	are being processed.
1:21.8	But it's an amazing image of just thousands of people in these makeshift shelters underneath
1:27.9	the bridge, surrounded by federal and state law enforcement.
1:32.3	That encampment is already shrinking.
1:34.8	Immigration officials are starting to clear the area, and state and federal officials
1:38.8	are trying to keep people out.
1:40.8	We put hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety cars and created a steel wall.
	...

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