RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – About 24% of Haitians arriving in the United States through the Mexican border departed from Brazil, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an arm of the United Nations (UN).
The number of Haitians trying to cross the border between Mexico and the United States increased in September – it is estimated that about 14,000 went to the city of Del Rio, Texas, which is separated from Ciudad Acuña by the Rio Grande.
Haitians enter Brazil with a residence permit for humanitarian reception, which gives them the right to stay at least two years in the country. After that, they can convert the authorization to an indefinite one, as long as they can prove living in the country.
The path between Brazil and the USA is by land: leaving Brazil, the Haitians cross into Peru, then Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, and finally, they try to enter the USA.
On their way, there is a bottleneck, the Darién region in Panama. It is an area known to be dangerous because of the impenetrable jungle and organized crime.
The IOM in Panama surveyed people who were in this location and headed to the U.S. The data were collected between August and September. The organization interviewed 649 people.
The reception of Haitians who came to Brazil after the 2010 earthquake is considered good, it points out: there is integration, and it is a community that works and gets qualified. However, the economic crisis hits them harder. “Many times, immigrants are in a country to send remittances (money) to their family who stayed in the country of origin, and the devaluation of the real (R$) against the dollar has a great impact on the life of the immigrant who sends remittances to Haiti,” says Chaves.
In addition, says the public defender, when President Joe Biden took over the U.S. government, Haitians thought that the country’s doors would be more open to them.
In May, the U.S. government announced that it would give temporary protections to undocumented Haitians living in the U.S. – however, this would only apply to those who were there before August.