According to Customs and Border Protection, over 9,000 Haitian migrants are being held in a makeshift detention camp under the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas.
A video provided by a source within the CBP shows migrants leaving the river after crossing illegally into Del Rio from Ciudad Acuna. In the footage, the mostly Haitian migrants can be seen entering the Rio Grande from Mexico.
Another federal source says the number is now above 9,300. The total was 8,200 in the morning, and approximately 4,000 the day before.
Days prior, the large groups of mostly Haitian migrants were entering at a pace of 800-1,200 per eight-hour shift.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott previously announced plans for Texas state troopers and the Texas National Guard to shut down points of entry along the state’s border. But that plan was scrapped recently, and replaced with plans for those agencies to “deter crossings.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan also recently blocked the Biden administration from turning away migrant families with children, citing a public health order related to COVID-19.
The order will take effect in a few weeks, and will force the legal admittance of countless more migrants at the border.
According to reporter Bill Melugin, Biden’s FAA implemented a two-week Temporary Flight Restriction over the international bridge in Del Rio, TX.
Because of this order, news outlets were not allowed to fly drones over it to show images of the crisis. The FAA says this restriction was put in place for a “special security reason”.
After pressure from multiple media outlets, the order was lifted the following day.
According to a new forecast, more than 1.8 million illegal immigrants are expected to cross the U.S.-Mexico border this year, making it the “worst ever” on record for illegal immigration.
Only around 1 million legal immigrants are processed in an average year, which would mean total immigration for 2021 would be nearly over 3 million people.
The projection from Princeton Policy Advisors showed that a high of 1,864,000 illegal immigrants could cross the southwest border based on current trends and past averages.
Reportedly, about 50,000 migrants who crossed the southern border illegally in just the past few months have now been released in the United States without a court date according to a recent Axios report.
Illegal migration is at record highs and more migrants are coming from further away, including Haiti.
One video shows Haitians being dropped off at random gas stations by officials and told to reach their final destination within 60 days and within the interior of the country or face removal.
According to an Axios report, the Biden administration is only deporting around 13% of migrants that illegally cross. This report aligns with statements from border patrol officials which say the Biden administration is only deporting certain single male migrants.
During a meeting about one Texas facility, a doctor for the U.S. Public Health Service refused to give out information on Covid rates.
“I can’t give you daily numbers and breakouts and graphs and things like that,” he said. “Assume everyone has Covid, act appropriately. … Sorry, it’s not a great answer.”
Earlier this week, La Joya officials confirmed that thousands of COVID-positive migrants have crossed, and many of them are staying at local hotels to quarantine.
White House press secretary told reporters recently that migrants do not have to have a covid vaccine to gain entry.
Authorities in Del Rio, Tex., say the more than 9,000 thousand Haitian migrants have arrived at the camp in the past 36 hours. Thousands or possibly tens of thousands more are expected in the coming days.
Images of the bridge site show the crowds. The migrants appear to be part of a larger wave of Haitian migrants, many of whom arrived in Brazil and other South America, now embarking on a grueling journey to reach the United States.
Almost 30,000 Haitians have arrived over just the past 11 months. Other videos and images show prior arrivals taken into CBP custody and transported into the interior of the US.
Outside of the surge of migrants from Haiti as well as South and Central America, the US is also dealing with tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan.
According to a recent announcement, the Pentagon added three new U.S. military bases to the list of bases that will help house Afghan refugees who make it stateside after being evacuated by the military.
After a short stay at various processing centers, the refugees will then be resettled in states across the country.
According to reports, the majority of the approximately 100,000 Afghan refugees will be permanently resettled in states like Idaho, Texas, Montana, Washington, California, and Minnesota.
Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn led a Senate delegation tour of the Texas-Mexico border in March in response to the immigration crisis surging.
Following the tour, Sen. Ted Cruz posted a video of a woman he identified as a Biden administration staffer blocking him from recording at a migrant facility.
While the tour was followed by news conferences, just as news drones are not allowed today to fly over the current surge of Haitian migrants in Texas, news cameras were not permitted in the facility for the actual tour Cruz and colleagues took.
The junior senator from Texas sent a letter to President Joe Biden in March urging him to permit news cameras inside the facilities so that the public can see for themselves conditions as hundreds of thousands of migrants make their way across the border.
In the letter, Cruz accuses the president of actively working to keep people from seeing for themselves the severity of the situation near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The reporters and the cameras could not see any of this because you, President Biden, prevented it. I sent you a letter urging you to allow us to bring media with us. Not only did you refuse, you actively worked to prevent the American public from seeing what you saw,” Cruz wrote.
