U.S. flies migrants back to Haiti

More than 320 Haitians flew to Port-au-Prince on Sunday, arriving back in their home country after migrating to Central and South America and then crossing the U.S. southern border on foot illegally. The United States plans to expel many more of the 12,000 Haitians encamped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Customs and Border Patrol has deployed extra agents to keep order in the shantytown that has arisen in the area and to try to stop more people from crossing the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.

Are the migrants applying for asylum? A Trump-era public health rule remains in place restricting asylum-seekers from entering the United States due to rising coronavirus infections, though unaccompanied children and some families are exempt. Central American migrants who have crossed the border illegally are typically returned to Mexico, but Mexico only accepts its own nationals and people from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in such cases.

Dig deeper: Read Onize Ohikere’s reporting on Haiti’s political and natural disasters.