“I will not try to reach the United States”

Acuna. – Rose Joseph, A. Migrant Haitian Joe Thursday. lives on the border of acunahandjob coavillaShe says, convinced in her broken Spanish that the American dream does not exist. “For me, no,” he says.

Rose, 26, reassures her as she skips a medical check-up in a module Red Cross Joe Braulio Fernandez settled in Aguirre Park, which has become a camp for Haitians stranded in Mexico, most of them afraid to cross America and be deported. They also have a one year and 10 month old daughter with them.

The park borders the Rio Grande, which separates the Mexican city of Del Rio, in Texas. At about 200 metres, Haitians have found a new crossing to and from the International Bridge in the United States to the municipality of Ciudad Acua, where there are no restrictions on buying and receiving food.

The Red Cross health module was established since Haitians began living on Mexican soil, in view of the deportation policy of the United States and the poor treatment they received from the authorities in that country.

“I’m not going to try [llegar a Estados Unidos], No. Life is not easy for us. It is not easy,” lamented Rose Joseph.

He says that since last Wednesday he slept under the International Bridge on the American side. “It’s too bad, too hard,” he says when asked about the circumstances he was in. “I go two days without eating, I can’t do it again. can not explain”.

Haitian immigrants complain that US officials only give them bread and water for the whole day. This is why they return to Mexico to buy food and return to the United States.

Migrants gather around electrical contacts to charge their cell phones, as they wish to report to their families.

As they arrive from the Mexican side, and they enter through an old American football park, they hear screams from the residents of Coinage offering food at low prices. Others give it.

“They only eat chicken, rice, vegetables or soup,” says one local. A plate containing chicken and rice pieces is sold for 20 pesos. Paleteros come to the riverside to offer their product.

“Doesn’t he have any soup?” asks a Haitian as he comes out of the river. “Soup, chicken, Mexican Maruchan”, responds a resident of Ciudad Acua.

But inside the park, after walking, the migrants are given food, clothes, water, soft drinks, diapers. Throughout the day, at all times, Acuna residents or members of the federations come to deliver food. The thing they look for the most is clothes.

it is better to live in mexico

Because of the conditions under the bridge, and information that their countrymen are being deported, many Haitians are choosing to live in Acua. Tents and migrants can be seen already asking for them inside the park. Many others gather around electrical outlets to charge their cell phones. It has become necessary to call family members.

“[A algunos] friends took them and [los] have been deported. Wife and son are on the bridge. No water, nothing. They give me a piece of bread, a piece of water to eat, that’s all”, complains the Haitian Ever Pines, while a helicopter is heard flying over the area.

He says his friends went to US officials, didn’t tell him anything and took him to the airport for deportation. He is afraid that this might happen to him as well.

Haitian expat Rose Joseph also learns of the deportation and therefore assures that she will be better off in Mexico as returning to Haiti is not an option. “We need only legal papers for our daughter to live and work. He has to go to school, he has to live in a house.”

Despite the fact that many prefer to wait in Acuna so as not to be deported, the flow of migrants to the United States continues along the stretch of the river.

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