TIJUANA, MEXICO

Jan. 29, 2017

(Excerpt) In 2016 and early 2017 Haitians started pouring into Tijuana. And they came in droves. The sheer numbers overwhelmed the downtown shelters. At one point some shelters that had room for 30 people, usually Mexicans that the U.S. deported, were occupied by hundreds of Haitians who were headed in the opposite direction.

The Salesian mission very close to the actual San Isidro crossing was overwhelmed to the point where they could no longer house and feed the Haitians entering the city.

An interview with the director, Claudia Portela, told me the Haitians who arrived had been told that they would get better treatment at San Isidro than at other Ports of Entry along the United States Border. But the city and its services were not prepared for this type of disruption. A real emergency existed when 10-15 Haitians arrived each day at the mission’s doorsteps.

See the full Inkstick Media article by Johanna Mendelson Forman: Haitians south of the border: A tale of two cities

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