Inside the brutal 10,000-mile journey Haitian migrants make in search of a home

From atop the Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge that stretched above the makeshift migrant camp on the U.S. side of the border, the cries of children rose from below and the loud thunder of a government helicopter boomed overhead. Families shielded themselves from the hot sun under tents constructed from the carrizo cane that was growing along the river. The arrival of some 16,000 Haitian migrants to this border town grabbed the nation’s attention mid-September 2021. There were images of border agents on horseback rounding up Haitians, a local disaster declaration and stories of pregnant women with little to eat and drink. What Americans saw as the beginning of a crisis was the end of a long journey for many Haitian migrants who crossed South and Central America to be there. Thousands were ushered into the country and made it to cities like Houston, Miami and Boston. Others were not so lucky.

Since mid-September, according to the International Organization for Migration, the Biden administration has flown nearly 13,000 men, women and children back to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. But what happened in Del Rio was the bubbling up of one of the most surprising immigration stories of the decade – a story that traverses unexpected parts of the Americas: the Chilean capital of Santiago, Brazilian stadiums and a place where the Pan-American highway gives way to roadless jungle. Four dozen Haitian men and women strap their wide-eyed children into black-and-yellow life vests underneath a large white tent in this beach town on the northwest coast of Colombia on a cloudy November morning. They wear their Brazilian and Haitian passports covered in plastic around their necks — a badge of the lives they leave behind. It took thousands of miles on numerous buses to get here, yet the toughest part of the journey is ahead of them. Babies are crying, but the mood is lively. The warm Caribbean winds that gust through town are familiar. A vendor offers popcorn and fried plantains for the road. Men carrying small tents and large plastic water jugs chat energetically in Haitian Creole as they wait to board. Backpacks and thick plastic trash bags hold the essentials — and the last treasures of their former lives.