Thousands of Haitian Migrants Pour Across the Border at Del Rio as Makeshift Camp Swells to 10,000

Thousands of migrants continue to converge in a makeshift camp under the bridge that connects Del Rio, Texas and Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña, in the latest border emergency and humanitarian crisis facing US President Joe Biden.

The camp had swelled to some 10,000 migrants on Thursday, with thousands seen wading across the Rio Grande River daily. Most are Haitians, with some Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans also present.

Amid the surge of the highly infectious Delta variant, the crowded conditions of the camp also raised concerns about the possibility of COVID-19 outbreaks endangering the health of the migrants.

Biden, who imposed sweeping vaccination rules on many Americans last week, has admitted that people who cross the border illegally won’t be required to get vaccinated, and the Border Patrol has said that it has insufficient time and space to even test most migrants upon their arrival.

After aerial drone images of the growing camp surfaced Thursday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration, overseen by Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, imposed a two-week flight restriction banning drones from flying in the area, citing unspecified security concerns.

Critics of the administration immediately accused the administration of censorship. {snip}

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Food and water has been scarce in the makeshift camp, around 20 migrants told Reuters, and temperatures have risen to around 99 Fahrenheit. Reporters witnessed hundreds of migrants wading through the Rio Grande river and back into Mexico to stock up on essentials they say they are not receiving on the American side.

Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Thursday that he directed state troopers and the Texas National Guard ‘to shut down six points of entry along the southern border’ at the request of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, before reversing himself and blaming the confusion on the Biden administration.

‘Six hours after U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden Administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border,’ Abbott said in a statement.

‘The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan. I have directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to maintain their presence at and around ports of entry to deter crossings,’ added the governor.

Following the confusion, Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, called on Abbott to seize control of the border from the federal government.

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Haiti is in the midst of its own humanitarian crisis after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on August 14, which killed more than 2,200 people and damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes.

The impoverished country is also being wracked by fresh political instability caused by the assassination of its former president Jovenel Moise in June, with the island’s prime minister Ariel Henry since named as a suspect in the investigation.

A CBP official said that there were more than 6,000 migrants waiting under the bridge to be processed on Wednesday, but by Thursday night that number surged to some 10,000, according to a Fox News reporter.

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