By Daina Beth Solomon

CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican officials are urging Haitians on the Texas border trying to reach the United States to give up and return to Mexico’s frontier with Guatemala to request asylum, even as discontent grows over the treatment meted out to the beleaguered migrants.

As they tried to cross the Rio Grande this month, approximately 14,000 Haitians stayed north of it. But hundreds fled to Mexico as U.S. officials started sending people back home to Haiti.

The U.S. special representative to Haiti resigned on Thursday in protest at the Biden administration’s deportations to Haiti of migrants. This Caribbean country has been devastated by gang violence, natural disasters, and the assassination its president.

The incident came after widespread anger was sparked by photos of an American border guard riding horseback and waving a whip at Haitian migrants.

But pressure on Joe Biden, the U.S. president, is growing to tighten border. The National Migration Institute of Mexico (INM), is beginning to send migrants back to Tapachula in southern Mexico to file asylum claims.

Francisco Garduno, chief of INM said that they are not taking the migrants out of Mexico. They are being taken away from the border in order to avoid overcrowding and hygiene issues.

The perilous and costly trip from Guatemala to Ciudad Acuna at the Mexico-U.S. frontier was costly for Haitians. They are skeptical that it is worth returning to the same city they unsuccessfully attempted to process their asylum claims.

Willy Jean spent two months without success in Tapachula and said that if Mexico truly wanted to assist the migrants it should let them make applications elsewhere.

Tapachula is really hard, very small, and there are lots of people,” Jean told an INM agent, trying to convince him to move south. There’s no work.

“There’s no work, there’s nothing”: The United States returned almost 2,000 Haitians to their camp in Del Rio, Texas. This was announced late Thursday by DHS.

DHS stated that the Del Rio region, where people have been forced to live in makeshift shelters built of reeds along the Rio Grande’s banks, currently holds around 3,000 persons.

SLIM CHANCE

Mexican official data show Haitians are already far less likely to have asylum claims approved in Mexico compared with many nationalities, even if their chances are starting to improve.

Of all the asylum cases that were officially resolved last year, 22% had been approved by Haitians. That compares with 98% in Venezuela, 85% of Hondurans (85%), 83% Salvadorans (84%) and 44% respectively. This year’s Haitian figure is at least 31%.

Mexico’s Commission for Refugee Assistance is overwhelmed by asylum applications. It schedules appointments for months ahead, if ever. Many Haitians living in Ciudad Acuna claimed they left Tapachula after getting fed up waiting.

Caitlyn Yotes, an expert on migration at the University of British Columbia said “It basically pushes Haitians outside.”

A pile of soggy papers found in the grass next to the Rio Grande indicated that an applicant for humanitarian visa from Haiti in August would have needed to wait until December in order for an appointment.

INM agents entered the camp Thursday to tell migrants who were looking for asylum at the U.S. border that they would prefer to handle claims prior to the media disappearing from Del Rio or Ciudad Acuna.

Montserrat Saldana from INM told the group of migrants that she was giving them this option. “All you crossing the river will be going directly to Haiti.”