Haitian migrants milled around makeshift shelters held up with giant reeds, as wind blew dust through the camp littered with plastic bottles and overflowing trash bags.
Some migrants sat on plastic paint cans or the ground while others hung clothes to dry on the bamboo-like carrizo cane.
All waited to learn their fate at a dramatically diminished Texas border encampment where almost 15,000 migrants had gathered just days ago under a bridge between Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acua, Mexico.
About 4,000 remained on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security officials said. The number had peaked on Saturday, as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration's policies and misinformation on social media converged at the crossing.
But the United States and Mexico appeared eager to end the increasingly politicized humanitarian situation that prompted the resignation of the US special envoy to Haiti and fresh condemnation from civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton and UNICEF.
DHS officials said about 1,400 migrants had been sent to Haiti on 13 flights, rapidly expelled under the pandemic public health authority known as Title 42. Another 3,200 were in US custody and being processed, while several thousand have returned to Mexico, DHS officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to brief journalists about an ongoing operation.
Mexico's immigration agency had estimated late Wednesday there were as many as 600 migrants in Ciudad Acua. The riverside camp appeared to hold that many at its peak, while other migrants were scattered through the city in hotels and private homes.
A city official said Wednesday that Mexican authorities had removed about 250 Haitian migrants from the city since Sunday evening. Still, several thousand migrants returning to Mexico from the Del Rio camp seemed an exaggeration.
Haitians camped in Mexico awoke Thursday surrounded by security forces, with a helicopter thundering overhead and state police trucks spaced every 30 feet or so between their tents and the water's edge.
After anxious minutes of indecision, dozens of families hurried into the river to cross at a point where there was only one municipal police vehicle, calculating it was better to take their chances with US authorities.
Guileme Paterson, a 36-year-old from Haiti, appeared dazed. It is a difficult moment, she said before beginning to cross the Rio Grande with her husband and their four children.
Things are going badly, said Michou Petion, carrying her two-year-old son in her arms toward the river. Her husband carried bags of belongings and several pairs of sneakers dangled around his neck.
The US is deporting a lot to Haiti, now I don't know if I can enter or leave, Petion said.
Texas Department of Public Safety officials allowed journalists to visit the camp later Thursday but prevented them from talking to migrants. For those who remained, food, shelter and medical care was being provided to those who need it, US officials said.
At one point, two men riding in an ATV emblazoned with Homeland Security approached a group of women holding infants and said in Spanish: We have food for the baby. The women approached the men, who handed them a small container.
A low dam that had been used to cross from Mexico into the US was closed, and a worker picked up mounds of discarded belongings that included cell phone chargers, clothing and Styrofoam containers.
Sharpton said Thursday that he toured the camp and witnessed a real catastrophic and human disgrace. A handful of protesters, some wearing camouflage hats from former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, shouted through the entirety of Sharpton's remarks.
Del Rio is not a racist city. Del Rio is a loving, caring community, one protester yelled while Sharpton spoke to reporters.
Sharpton vowed to continue to come back ... and stand with our people and make sure asylum is treated in one way and one manner.
Some Haitians are being allowed to remain in the US at least temporarily to seek asylum or to stay under some other claim to residency, with notices to appear later before immigration authorities. DHS officials declined to specify the number but said they are people with particular vulnerabilities, which can mean they have young children or are pregnant, or because the US doesn't have capacity to hold them in detention, especially during the pandemic.
There are no plans to stop expelling other migrants under Title 42, despite pressure from Democratic lawmakers, who say migrants are being sent back to a troubled country that some left more than a decade ago.
The provision was put in place by the Trump administration in March 2020 to justify restrictive immigration policies in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But the Biden administration has used Title 42 to justify the deportation of Haitian migrants.
A federal judge late last week ruled the regulation was improper and gave the government two weeks to halt its use, but the Biden administration on Monday appealed the decision.
Officials said Thursday that the US State Department also is in talks with Brazil and Chile to allow some Haitians who previously resided in those countries to return, but the issue is complicated because some no longer have legal status there.
Meanwhile, the US special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, submitted a letter of resignation protesting the inhumane large-scale expulsions of Haitian migrants.
