TEXAS (Dispatches) – A Texas border encampment where about 15,000 migrants had set up makeshift shelters has been cleared, as authorities continued a controversial policy of expelling asylum seekers from the United States.
Workers finished removing the last debris of impromptu shelters and tents in Del Rio, Texas, as state troopers lined the banks of the Rio Grande, on the border with Mexico, to discourage new crossings.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said “there are no longer any migrants in the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge”.
Nearly 30,000 migrants, many of them from Haiti, had been camping underneath Del Rio International Bridge in the past two weeks.
Democratic lawmakers and human rights groups have slammed the repatriation of Haitian migrants to a troubled country that some left more than 10 years ago.
Images of a border guard using reins as whips to contain Haitian migrants sparked outrage earlier this week.
“We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism,” Mayorkas said at a news conference, promising a swift inquiry into the matter.
Vice President Kamala Harris has condemned the U.S. treatment of Haitian migrants, saying images of American border patrol agents on horseback whipping the migrants evoked “times of slavery.”
In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Harris said the imagery, which circulated widely on social media, reminded her of tactics “used against the Indigenous people of our country” and that have “been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”
“Human beings should not be treated that way,” Harris added, referring to photos and videos of Border Patrol agents chasing and beating up migrants.
Earlier this week, Harris said that she was “deeply troubled” by the way the Biden administration, of which she is a key part, is treating the Haitian migrants.
Images appeared of riders on horseback rounding up Haitian migrants and using their reins in an aggressive manner. The brutal treatment of the migrants by the border agents drew a swell of criticism toward the Biden administration’s handling of the issue.
The new surge of migrants in the southern border represents yet another test of Biden’s widely-criticized immigration policy.
Biden had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to overturn the harshest aspects of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
The scene of dense crowds, sleeping on dirt in scorching heat and with little access to food and clear water, drew condemnations.