Mexico returns Haitian migrants on flight to Haiti

MEXICO CITY – Mexico began flying Haitian migrants backmost to their homeland Wednesday, sending 70 radical to Port au Prince.

The archetypal formation took disconnected from the Villahermosa airdrome successful the Gulf seashore authorities of Tabasco with 41 men, 16 women and 13 minors aboard. The United States is besides returning migrants connected flights to the Haitian capital.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute did not instantly respond to questions astir erstwhile much flights were planned. But it referred to those connected Wednesday's formation arsenic “the archetypal group," suggesting it was the commencement of a process to grip thousands of Haitian migrants who streamed to the U.S. borderline this month.

Thousands much are stuck successful the confederate metropolis of Tapachula, adjacent the Guatemalan border, waiting to person their asylum oregon exile claims processed by Mexican officials.

“Authorities from the Interior and Foreign Relations Departments agreed with representatives of the Republic of Haiti to commencement the assisted voluntary instrumentality of migrants successful Mexico to their homeland,” the institute said successful a statement.

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The institute said the returns were voluntary, and that the Haitians had been surviving successful Tabasco and cardinal Mexico. That suggests they were not among those who had gone to the U.S. borderline this month, nor the thousands stuck successful Tapachula.

A Mexican authoritative said past week that the program was to archetypal region Haitians who were already successful detention centers and had not requested protective status.

On Friday, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, “We don’t privation Mexico to beryllium a migrant camp; we privation the occupation to beryllium addressed fully.”

On Tuesday, Mexican officials opened a mammoth reception halfway extracurricular a shot stadium successful Tapachula successful a bid to easiness a backlog successful Mexico’s asylum strategy and the resulting frustrations that drove thousands of applicants to caput toward the U.S.

The tract extracurricular Tapachula’s Olympic Stadium tin grip arsenic galore arsenic 2,000 radical daily. Previously, immense crowds had packed the streets astir the commission’s downtown offices successful Tapachula, jostling for position.

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In aboriginal September, groups of hundreds of migrants acceptable retired walking from Tapachula, successful galore cases fed up with waiting for the overburdened asylum strategy to process their cases. Each time, Mexican authorities broke up the groups.

More recently, immoderate 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants appeared astatine the Mexico-U.S. border. Some of them besides had unfastened asylum cases successful Mexico but had grown bushed of waiting. U.S. authorities spent a week clearing that campy successful Del Rio, Texas, deporting immoderate straight to Haiti and releasing others into the United States with the anticipation they would look earlier migration officials astatine a aboriginal date.

Some of those migrants who were detained by Mexican authorities successful Ciudad Acuña were shipped backmost southbound to Tapachula.

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