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undefined NaN, NaNNaN:NaN PM undefinedLast Updated 12 days ago

WORLD


WHATSAPP INSTRUCTIONS, MEXICAN STRUGGLES: HOW HAITIANS ENDED UP IN TEXAS CAMP

By Alexandra Ulmer
 * 
 * 
 * 
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3 minute read
1/2

Migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. walk in the Rio Grande river near the
International Bridge between Mexico and the U.S. as they wait to be processed,
in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, September 17, 2021. Migrants cross back and forth into
Mexico to buy food and supplies. REUTERS/Go Nakamura

Read More


CIUDAD ACUÑA, Mexico, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Haitians camped out under a Texas
bridge followed instructions circulated on WhatsApp to get there, according to a
dozen migrants who said the tips delivered to their phones helped them evade
checks by Mexican authorities.

Over 10,000 migrants, most of them Haitians, were as of Friday sleeping on the
ground in a squalid camp under the Del Rio International Bridge connecting
Ciudad Acuña, Mexico to Del Rio, Texas, hoping to apply for U.S. asylum.

The camp's quick growth - at least 2,000 people arrived on Thursday alone - has
sparked questions about why groups were converging on Del Rio specifically.

In interviews, Haitians spoke of starting their journeys where they had been
living under difficult conditions for some time in South America. They showed
Reuters several guides they had been following on their phones - some just lists
of Mexican towns and others detailed instructions on what buses to take - that
all culminated by the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas.



James Pierre, 28, shared a WhatsApp (FB.O) list of 15 stops through Mexico -
starting in Huixtla, Chiapas, and ending in Ciudad Acuña - that he said was
circulating among Haitian migrants.

"Those ahead sent directions by phone. I helped people coming behind me," Pierre
said. Still, he said he got lost for days in the mountains and survived on
little but water and fruit.

One image shared by a migrant who arrived on Friday included detailed
instructions on bus routes through Mexico, including which terminals to get off
and where to buy tickets. Several other Haitians also reported receiving the
same instructions.

The instructions said: "These are the routes for which you will not be asked for
any paperwork when buying travel tickets."



Groups of Haitians and other migrants who were frustrated with a long wait for
travel documents tried to leave southern Mexico in caravans weeks ago.

Those groups were broken up by security forces that in some cases deployed
excessive violence. One video widely circulated on social media showed Mexican
immigration agents knocking to the ground and repeatedly stamping on a migrant.
The two agents have since been suspended.

U.S. border officials have been struggling with a growing number of migrant
crossings. They have reached 20-year-highs along the U.S.-Mexico border, topping
195,000 encounters in August.

LEAVING SOUTH AMERICA



Many of the Haitians interviewed by Reuters said they used to live in South
America, often Brazil or Chile, but decided to move on because they could not
attain legal status there or struggled to secure decent jobs. Some Haitians also
said they were encouraged by videos they saw on social media about obtaining
asylum in the United States.

Their Caribbean homeland long has been plagued by economic and political
instability and repeated natural disasters. Most recently, Haiti's president was
assassinated in July and in August the country was battered by both a 7.2
magnitude earthquake and a powerful storm.

Haitian Alexandro Petitfrere, 30, said that when he left a difficult life as a
construction worker in Brazil last July, he hoped Mexico might prove a better
home.

But Petitfrere said police officers robbed $100 from him as he was crossing into
Tapachula, in the south of the country, in August. Reuters was not able to
confirm his allegation.



He said he then had to sleep in queues to get a permit to stay in the area,
could not find work, struggled to afford accommodation and said there was
rampant discrimination against Haitians.

"If Mexico had given me an opportunity, I would have stayed. But because they
mistreated us, I decided to come here," Petitfrere said.

Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer, Editing by Donna Bryson and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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