Mexico sends second flight with migrants to Haiti

Mexico repatriated 129 Haitians in coordination with Port-au-Prince, to address the crisis that unleashed a wave of undocumented migrants to the United States, reported the National Institute of Migration (INM).

Migration authorities carried out “the return of migrants originating from Haiti, in accordance with human rights and in agreement with consular authorities of that country,” the INM reported in a statement.

The flight departed from Tapachula, Chiapas, on the Guatemalan border, “with 129 passengers to the International Airport of Port-au-Prince, Haiti”, the agency added.

This is the second group of Haitians that Mexico returned to their country, within the framework of the agreements reached with Port-au-Prince by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known by the acronym AMLO.

The first group was repatriated on September 29, in a procedure that the INM then described as “assisted voluntary return.” On this occasion, the agency only referred to the “return” of migrants.

The Haitians were at the SXXI migration station in Tapachula and were taken to the international airport in the same city in four buses.

“AMLO’s immigration policy is riddled with euphemisms and lies. The migrants are not arrested but ‘rescued’. They are not detained but ‘presented’. They are not deported but are subject to ‘assisted return’,” the Director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch, José Miguel Vivanco, tweeted.

Mexico began to return Haitians to their country after the United States carried out mass deportations among the nearly 15,000 Haitians who camped under a border bridge between the cities of Del Río, Texas, and Acuña, Mexico.

Repatriations from Mexico are part of the agreements reached at a meeting between representatives of Mexico and Haiti, set up on September 21 “in order to meet the needs of people of Haitian origin located in the national territory,” explained the INM.

For just over three months, tens of thousands of Haitians have been involved in an exodus that crosses the continent from as far away as Chile and Brazil in order to fulfill their dream of reaching the United States to request asylum.

Given Washington’s refusal to receive them, many of them are choosing to seek refuge in Mexico and seek opportunities in the Latin American country.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Mexico on October 8 to discuss security. According to the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, the migration crisis is not among the issues to be discussed with the official.

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