US to step up ‘removal flights’ for migrants stranded at Texas bridge

DEL RIO: 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 migrants who poured into the city, many of them Haitian, were being held in an area controlled by US Customs and Border Protection beneath the Del Rio International Bridge, which carries traffic across the Rio Grande river into Mexico.

Video footage showed thousands of people under and around the bridge. US media put the total figure at close to 14,000.

CBP has dispatched 400 additional personnel to “improve control of the area,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, unveiling its plans to contain the situation.

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.