Mayorkas: 12,000 Haitian migrants released in U.S.

The number of mostly Haitian migrants who amassed at the U.S. southern border over the past month is now estimated at 30,000. Officials have cleared their encampment at Del Rio, Texas, and released about 12,000 of them into the United States with an order to appear at an immigration court at a future date, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sunday. He said thousands more are in custody, and 2,000 were expelled already on flights to Haiti.

Were the Haitians mistreated? Photographer Paul Latje, who shot a picture of what looked like a Border Patrol agent on horseback whipping a Haitian man, said it wasn’t what it looked like. He told KTSM-TV in El Paso that the Haitians in the photo were trying to run around the horses as the agent was swinging his reins but not hitting anyone. More large groups of Haitian migrants, numbering more than 20,000, have reportedly gathered in Central America and are preparing to make their way north to the United States.

Dig deeper: Read Charissa Koh’s report in Compassion about the processing of migrants in Del Rio.