Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 1,000 Haitian citizens in a rural part of the Texas-Mexico border over the past three and a half weeks, according to Customs and Border Protection.
The number of Haitian migrants federal agents based in south-central Texas saw illegally cross near Del Rio between June 10 and July 4 was three times more than the total number of people who were apprehended in all of fiscal 2018: 311. The previous year, agents took 163 Haitians into custody nationwide, according to federal data.
Some of those crossing arrived in large groups of 100 or 200 people, such as on June 22 and June 24, respectively. Border Patrol did not specify how people traveling from the Caribbean island got to the southern border.
CBP said 800 of the 1,000 people were members of a family unit. More than 230 of the children were related to the parent they arrived with and were born in a third country, including Brazil and Chile.
“Many of these family units have resided in Chile and other South American countries for several years prior to departing for the United States,” the Department of Homeland Security agency said in a statement.
The Del Rio region has also seen the majority of Central Africans arriving at the border since late May, including hundreds from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
