An angry scene broke out at a major airport in Haiti after immigrants were deported from the United States to the country.
On Tuesday, port-au-Prince airport migrants rushed back to the plane they arrived at, while others threw their shoes on the jets.
Last weekend, the United States began flying immigrants from a Texas border town that has been influxed for the past few weeks.
Approximately 13,000 immigrant candidates gathered under the bridge between Del Rio, Texas and Ciudad Real Madrid, Mexico.
Chaos unfolded at Toussaint Louvercher Airport when a man tried to re-board the aircraft. The plane crew hurriedly closed the jet door, according to Reuters.
Video footage taken at the airport Shows people competing for personal belongings after the bag is thrown away from the plane.
Some immigrants They were not told to return to Haiti.
According to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement, there were two separate incidents at the airport on Tuesday.
One source told NBC News that a pilot on one of the flights was assaulted when he arrived in Haiti, injuring three U.S. immigration officers.
In another incident in Texas, a group of Haitians reportedly tried to flee after fighting border guard agents and realizing they had been deported.
At that time, immigrants were being transported by bus from the town of Brownsville to Del Rio.
“When I learned that migrants would be sent back to Haiti, I fled on a bus,” Border Security President Brandon Judd said in a press conference late Tuesday.
The exclusion of immigrants has been criticized by Partners In Health, an NGO operating in the country.
“It is unthinkably cruel to send men, women and children back to places that many of them no longer even call their” home “at times when it is difficult and dangerous for Haiti. “
According to DHS, about 4,000 people have been deported or moved to other processing centers.
From Thursday, the flight Increased up to 7 times a day According to the Washington Post.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday citing an unnamed US official that authorities have also released Haiti’s immigrants to the United States “on a very large scale.”
Officials added that many of the migrants were notified to appear in the immigration office within 60 days. Officials said the approach took less time than appearing in an immigration court.
Immigrants were waiting in a makeshift camp with temperatures of 37 ° C (99F).
Local authorities have struggled to provide them with food and proper hygiene.
Most of the people in the camp are Haitians, but there are also Cubans, Peruvians, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguas.
Many Haitians left the country after the 2010 catastrophic earthquake, and many of the people in the camp lived in Brazil and other South American countries and moved north because they could not secure jobs or legal status. I traveled.
This year has brought further difficulties to poor countries. The President of Haiti was assassinated in July and was hit by another deadly earthquake in August.