US to step up 'removal flights' for migrants stranded at Texas bridgeHaitian migrants cross the Rio Grande near the Del Rio-Acuña Port of Entry in Ciudad Acuña, MexicoDEL RIO (UNITED STATES) - The United States said Saturday it would step up the number of so-called "removal flights" for thousands of migrants who flooded into the Texas border city of Del Rio, in a bid to alleviate a burgeoning crisis for President Joe Biden's administration. The port of entry at Del Rio has been temporarily closed, and traffic is being rerouted to relieve the bottlenecks that had formed at the bridge. Homeland Security said it would "secure additional transportation to accelerate the pace and increase the capacity of removal flights to Haiti and other destinations in the hemisphere within the next 72 hours." But in Saturday's statement, the Department of Homeland Security said "regular expulsion and removal flights" were ongoing to Haiti, Mexico, Ecuador, and countries in Central America's Northern Triangle -- Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The number of Haitians crossing the southwest border into the United States has been surging for months.

Source: Bangkok Post September 18, 2021 17:03 UTC