The mayor of Del Rio, Texas declared a state of emergency Friday after more than 10,000 undocumented migrants, many of them Haitians, poured into the border city in a fresh test of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.
Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said that the migrants were crowded in an area controlled by the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) beneath the Del Rio International Bridge, which carries traffic across the Rio Grande river into Mexico.
Video footage showed thousands under and around the flyover, adults and families.
Many were Haitians hoping to stay in the United States as their country suffers after a large earthquake and continuing political turmoil, Lozano said.
Hundreds continued to flow into Del Rio Friday, boosting up the number that Lozano put at 10,503 under the bridge late Thursday.
All were awaiting processing, and hopefully a chance to remain in the United States, by the CBP, which has been overwhelmed by migrants crossing the border from Mexico as well as tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan.
“The border patrol right now is so overwhelmed with the influx of migrants in the Del Rio sector,” Lozano said.
The White House remained silent on the issue as political pressure mounted on Biden to address the influx.
Both Republicans and Democrats called for quick action from Biden, whose administration recorded and mostly expelled more than 200,000 migrants at the border in both July and August, the highest numbers in more than a decade.
Some said Biden’s decision in late July – after Haitian president Jovenel Moise’s assassination – to allow Haitians without US visas at the time to remain in the country offered an incentive for others to come.
“Some 10,503 illegal aliens are under this bridge tonight because Joe Biden made a political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti,” Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz tweeted on Thursday.
Meanwhile Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, herself an immigrant, also pressed Biden to act.
“This needs an urgent response from the Biden administration that is comprehensive and includes a cross-agency collaboration,” she said in a statement.
“Let’s help these folks who are stranded there and act swiftly before this gut-wrenching situation grows to unmanageable level.”