'Absolute Catastrophe': Senator Cruz Grills Biden Over Haiti Migrant Surge

The southern border of the United States has recently seen yet another surge of migrants, with thousands of people from Haiti flocking under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The Biden administration has announced that in order to tackle the crisis, deportation flights will be ramped up.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has lambasted US President Joe Biden for "cancelling" deportation flights to Haiti as the US border is once again overwhelmed by new migrants.

Speaking at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan, Cruz called the situation with the influx of migrants an "absolute catastrophe".

"The Mexican cartels have been funnelling the Haitian illegal immigrants to Del Rio for whatever reason", Cruz said. "Well, on September 8th, there were roughly nine hundred Haitians preparing to be loaded onto planes to be flown back and deported to Haiti".

However, according to the senator, Biden "cancelled the flights" on the same day that the migrants were to be deported, 8 September, and "900 Haitians… don’t get on the airplanes", having to reach out to "their friends and families" from cell phones instead.

Cruz lamented that within weeks, the numbers of migrants had skyrocketed.

"I was in Del Rio on September 16th, eight days later", he recalled. "In eight days, the seven hundred illegal immigrants under the bridge had become 10,503. Within a few days later, it had become over 15,000".

The Texas Republican warned that the United States is "on a path" to surpass two million encounters with illegal migrants on the US-Mexico border in 2021 alone. According to Cruz, the country is currently experiencing "the worst illegal immigration in 21 years" because of Biden's "deliberate political decisions".

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas estimated during his Friday remarks that "less than a week ago", there were approximately 15,000 migrants gathered in Del Rio, with the great majority of them being Haiti nationals.

"As of this morning, there are no longer any migrants in the camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge", Mayorkas said on Friday.

In response to the migrant crisis, the Biden administration ordered to ramp up so-called deportation flights. Mayorkas said that the DHS had "increased removal flights to Haiti commensurate with Haiti's capacity to receive flights".

According to him, US authorities have also provided transportation support to transfer migrants to other border patrol sectors with capacity in an apparent attempt to alleviate the crowds in Del Rio.

Cruz, however, is not the only one blasting the border crisis. Earlier in the week, former President Donald Trump also weighed in, saying that due to the migrant influx, the United States "will soon be considered a Third World Nation".

After the emergence of the images that purportedly showed US border agents on horseback "whipping" and pushing Haitian migrants, many decried the "inhumane" conditions that the refugees are forced to deal with.

On Thursday, US Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote announced his resignation, saying that he "will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive, decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti".