About a dozen Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles lined up near the bridge and river where Haitians are crossing from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio , Texas, for nearly three weeks.

The migrants initially found other ways to cross nearby until they were confronted by federal and state enforcement . An Associated Press reporter saw Haitian immigrants still crossing the river into the U.S. about 2.4 km east of the previous spot, but they were eventually stopped by patrol agents on horseback and Texas enforcement officials.

As they crossed, some Haitians carried boxes on their heads crammed with food. Some removed their pants before stepping into the river and carried them. Others were unconcerned about getting wet.

Agents yelled at the migrants who were crossing within the waist-deep river to urge out of the water. The several hundred who had successfully crossed and were sitting along the river bank on the U.S. side were ordered to the Del Rio camp.

Go now,’ agents yelled. Mexican authorities in an airboat told others trying to cross to travel back to Mexico.

Migrant Charlie Jean had crossed back to Ciudad Acuña from the camps to urge food for his wife and three daughters, ages 2, 5 and 12. He was waiting on the Mexican side for a restaurant to bring him an order of rice.

“We need food for each day. I can go without, but my kids can’t,” said Jean, who had been living in Chile for five years before beginning the trek north to the U.S. it had been unknown if he made it back across and to the camp.

Mexico said on Sunday it might also begin deporting Haitians to their homeland. A government official said the flights would be from towns near the U.S. border and therefore the border with Guatemala, where the most important group remains.

Haitians are migrating to the U.S. in large numbers from South America for several years, many having left their Caribbean nation after a devastating 2010 earthquake. After jobs dried up from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many made the damaging trek by foot, bus and car to the U.S. border, including through the infamous Darien Gap, a Panamanian jungle.

Some of the migrants at the Del Rio camp said the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti and therefore the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse make them afraid to return to a rustic that seems more unstable than once they left.

“In Haiti, there’s no security,” said Fabricio Jean, a 38-year-old Haitian who arrived in Texas together with his wife and two daughters. “The country is during a political crisis.” patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz said on Sunday that 3,300 migrants have already been faraway from the Del Rio camp to planes or detention centres, and he expects to possess 3,000 of the approximately 12,600 remaining migrants moved within each day . the remainder should be gone within the week, he said.

The first three planes left San Antonio for Port-au-Prince on Sunday, with the primary arriving within the afternoon.

“We are working round the clock to expeditiously move migrants out of the warmth , elements and from underneath this bridge to our processing facilities so as to quickly process and take away individuals from the us according to our laws and our policies,” Mr. Ortiz said at press conference at the Del Rio bridge. The rapid expulsions were made possible by a pandemic-related authority adopted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that permits for migrants to be immediately faraway from the country without a chance to hunt asylum. President Joe Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the order but let the remainder stand.

Any Haitians not expelled are subject to immigration laws, which include rights to hunt asylum and other sorts of humanitarian protection. Families are quickly released within the U.S. because the govt cannot generally hold children.

Meanwhile in Haiti, three flights landed at the Port-au-Prince airport, each carrying 145 people.

Families arriving on the primary flight held children by the hand or carried them as they exited, and a few of the 145 deportees covered their heads as they walked into an outsized bus parked next to the plane. Dozens lined up to receive a plate of rice, beans, chicken and plantains as they wondered where they might sleep and the way they might make money to support their families.

All the deportees got $100 and tested for COVID-19, though authorities weren’t getting to put them into quarantine, said Marie-Lourde Jean-Charles with the Office of National Migration.

Gary Monplaisir, 26, said his parents and sister sleep in Port-au-Prince, but he wasn’t sure if he would stick with them because to succeed in their house he, his wife and their five-year-old daughter would cross a gang-controlled area where killings are routine.

“I’m scared,” he said. “I do not have an idea .” He moved to Chile in 2017, even as he was close to earn an accounting degree, to figure as a tow car driver. He later purchased his wife and daughter to hitch him. They tried to succeed in the US because he thought he could get a better-paying job and help his family in Haiti.

Some migrants said they were getting to leave Haiti again as soon as possible.

One Haitian politician questioned Sunday whether the state could handle an influx of returning migrants and said the govt should stop the repatriation.

“We have things within the south with the earthquake. The economy may be a disaster, (and) there are not any jobs,” Election Minister Mathias Pierre said, adding that the majority Haitians can’t satisfy basic needs. “The prime minister should negotiate with the United States government to prevent those deportations during this moment of crises.”