US officials defend expulsion of Haitians from Texas town

By JUAN A. LOZANO, ERIC GAY, ELLIOT SPAGAT and MARIA VERZA
Associated Press

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — U.S. officials say more than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from an encampment at a Texas border town. They also defended a strong response that included immediately sending migrants back to their impoverished Caribbean country and the use of horse patrols to stop them from entering the town. It’s a massive show of force that signals the beginning of what could be one of America’s swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades. In all, U.S. authorities moved to expel many of the more than 12,000 migrants camped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, after crossing from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.