More than 100 Haitians flew home on a repatriation flight from Mexico, the country’s migration department said, as part of an agreement to address the rise in migration on the US border.
Authorities carried out “the return of migrants from Haiti, in compliance with human rights and in agreement with consular authorities of that country,” the National Migration Institute said Wednesday.
The 129 Haitians departed from Tapachula, Chiapas to the International Airport of Port-au-Prince, the statement added.
It was the second flight following an agreement between the two countries to begin the “voluntary” assisted returns from Mexico.
Thousands of undocumented migrants — many of them Haitians who had been living in South America — have arrived in recent weeks hoping to enter the United States.
After being turned away at the US border, many are seeking to stay as refugees there, rather than return to their poverty-stricken country.
Jose Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch executive director for Americas, tweeted a video that he purported to show a man fleeing Mexican immigration agents as he queued to board a plane to Haiti.
“Is this what the Mexican government is calling ‘voluntary’ returns?” he tweeted.
The Mexican government did not refer to the second flight as voluntary in its statement, unlike the September repatriation.
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