8,000 Haitians Stranded on Mexico-US Border

Nearly 500 Haitians immigrants– mostly women and children– are stranded and sleeping in open-air refugee camps in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, local press reported Tuesday.

They are waiting to receive humanitarian aid arranged by the Mexican government and international NGOs and represent a fraction of the nearly 8,000 Haitians who have shuttled over the past several months through the shelter in the northern state of Baja California, hoping to apply for asylum in the United States.

{snip}

Since last March the National Institute of Migration has been granting transit visas to many Haitians who reach the Mexican southern border with Guatemala. The permits are granted to prevent another migrant crisis like the one that occurred earlier this year.

However, NGO’s and local authorities say that has only created another crisis 2,5000 miles away, as Haitians who fled to Mexico following the devastating 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean country have been stuck in Mexico ever since, hoping to eventually apply for asylum in the United States.