Mexican forces surround border migrant camp

A camp where more than 14,000 migrants had waited along the Texas border just days ago is now dramatically smaller

CIUDAD ACUÑA, Mexico -- A camp where more than 14,000 migrants had waited along the Texas border just days ago was dramatically smaller at dawn Thursday, while across the river in Mexico, Haitian migrants in a growing camp awoke surrounded by security forces as a helicopter thundered overhead .

Both governments appeared eager to end the increasingly politicized humanitarian situation at the border, even as the U.S. expulsion of Haitians to their troubled homeland caused blowback for the administration of President Joe Biden.

The Biden administration’s special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, submitted a letter of resignation protesting the “inhumane” large-scale expulsions of Haitian migrants, U.S. officials said Thursday.

In Mexico, migrants who had camped in a park beside the river in Ciudad Acuña found state police trucks spaced every 30 feet or so between their tents and the water’s edge. Still, after anxious minutes of indecision, dozens of families opted to hustle into the river and cross at a point where there was only one municipal police vehicle, calculating it was better to take their chances with U.S. authorities.