The epic journey of Haitians ending up in Texas, via the Houston Chronicle and Texas Public Radio.
We bring you episode 1 of “Line in the Land,” a new podcast from Texas Public Radio and the Houston Chronicle that explores the human story behind the Haitians traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border in search of a better life. Read the full transcript here.
Hosts: Joey Palacios with Texas Public Radio, and Elizabeth Trovall with the Houston Chronicle.
More reading:
Inside the brutal 10,000-mile journey Haitian migrants make in search of a home
Podcast: Our nation’s Haitian double standard
Opinion: Helping one child at a time in Haiti 10 years after the devastation
Gustavo: Hey, what’s up, it’s Gustavo Arellano, and this is the Times…essential news from the L.A. Times. Today….we’re bringing you a story about a humanitarian crisis that’s been unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border for years now…one that we’ve covered on this podcast.
From our friends at Texas Public Radio and the Houston Chronicle, it’s a story of an immigration journey like few others….one that extends more than 10,000 miles….from the rubble of the 2010 Haitian earthquake, through South America… all the way to Del Rio and the Houston suburbs.
It’s Tuesday, August 2, 2022, and today…episode 1 of the new podcast “Line in the LAND.”
In the first season, Texas Public Radio and the Houston Chronicle explore the human story behind this Haitian immnigration journey. .
We’re going to bring you these stories once a week through August. Together, they touch on the topics of our times: from immigration policies…to American foreign policy…to the the unfulfilled promise to rebuild Haiti.
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(MUSIC – HIGH ENERGY, INTENSE)
SFX: INSIDE BORDER CAMP (audio from Dominican family – 2 audio cuts)
(Eli) It’s September 17th, 2021. Under the Del Rio International Bridge on the Texas side of the US-Mexico border … (PAUSE) children are crying. It’s 100 degree heat. Thousands of Haitians are corralled in a squalid camp…
“So you have 14,000+ people under the bridge. It is hot. The dust is there.”
Guerline Jozef has helped Haitians at the US-Mexico border for years. But she says this scene in Del Rio was different.
“You see the desperation and hopelessness in the faces of the people. And I was separated from them by literally chicken wire.”
SFX: CHILDREN HEARD FROM ABOVE BRIDGE (:17)
Families sit under the shade of rough shelters made from blankets and giant reeds growing on the Rio Grande river. Others have tents.
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Some of the Haitian families have already been waiting there in the impromptu U.S. migrant camp for days.
SFX: HELICOPTER (:30) (this is actually three cuts combined)
(Eli) Helicopters are overhead. The militarized response feels excessive, scary even – especially since the humanitarian need is so apparent and so great.
“There was no food. No water, for the first few days. Nothing.” (Jozef)
(Eli) A respite center in Del Rio offered water, clothing and medical attention to migrants.
“My name is Tiffany Burrow. This is above and beyond anything that this organization has seen. We have doubled, tripled, quadrupled our volunteers here.”
People even drove in from far away to help: (SFX: ACUNA AMBI)
“We brought food rice beans canned food we brought clothes, anything we can get.”
Chris Zamora came from Westover Hills Church in San Antonio…
“We were not expecting this. This is a lot of people. There’s a lot of need here.”
(Eli) Even Jozef – who has worked with Haitian migrants since 2015 – says: 00:42
“It was an experience
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that I will never forget. I don't know how to explain it.” (Jozef)
(TRANSITION MUSIC)
(Joey) Customs and Border Protection says around 16,000 Haitians came to Del Rio that month. So many arrived so suddenly in Del Rio, border officials assigned them a number and had them wait in that improvised Texas migrant camp under the Del Rio bridge for days.
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SFX - Leftover camp ambi
(Eli) Sudden upticks in crossings aren’t so rare – they can be triggered by natural disaster, political upheaval, poverty… But what we saw in Del Rio was on a different level.
(Joey) - For one, this was all happening ….in Del Rio…a sleepy Southwest Texas border town just big enough to have a Starbucks. It’s not usually such a major border crossing point. That’s why there wasn’t much infrastructure to deal with the influx.
(Eli) And it was a crush of people arriving within such a short period of time. Both volunteers and Border officials were slammed.
(Joey) - Not to mention… the people in the border camp… they weren’t who you typically see at the U.S.-Mexico border – they weren’t from Central America, or even South America. They were mostly Black immigrants from Haiti – Many spoke Spanish that they had picked up on their journey.
(Eli) Which brings up another point. Not only was this group mostly Haitian… many weren’t coming from Haiti. That’s at the HEART of the story we’ll be telling in this podcast. ( ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 1:32)
(Joey) It was a humanitarian crisis. But also a political one for President Joe Biden, who had taken office earlier in the year.
SFX: FOX_BidensBorderChaos “New video shows chaos at the southern border. Over 10,000 migrants cramming themselves under a bridge in Del Rio…”
(Eli) Cable news critics from left and right-wing political camps chimed in with their spin on the spectacle…
SFX: NOT2021_MSNBC “Unbelievable images shot near Del Rio, Texas… trying to corral human beings like cattle…”
(Eli) Those were clips from Fox News and MSNBC. And there were real concerns to consider. Humanitarian concerns about how people were being treated and their access to food, water and medical care. Legal concerns about the immigration pathway for Haitians being allowed in. Logistical concerns about how to deal with so many people.
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(MUSIC BEAT)
(Joey) But the story about how thousands of Haitians coalesced in the unlikely town of Del Rio, and what happened to those migrants after they left the camp is a lot more complex.
(Eli) It’s a story that can be traced back to a massive earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince Haiti in 2010 and beyond…
(Joey) And takes us through South American slums, the dangerous forests of the Darien Gap, the Houston suburbs…
(Eli) Texas Public Radio and The Houston Chronicle spent months reporting on this story – we went to the forest of Colombia, Mexican migrant shelters…
(Joey) We spoke with Haitians across the Americas… in person, through Whatsapp and video calls…
(Eli) The people who can best tell this story…
(Joey) Who can help us understand why so many people took this perilous journey…
(Eli) And when they got here – how U.S. border policy played such a pivotal – and in some cases devastating – role in their lives.
(Joey) I’m Joey Palacios with Texas Public Radio.
(Eli) And I’m Elizabeth Trovall with the Houston Chronicle.
(Joey) This is Episode one of LINE IN THE LAND…
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(Eli) To understand what was happening in Del Rio mid-September, you need to know about the “cortina” – Spanish for “curtain.”
(AMBI – River Sounds 2)
You see, here at this spot in the Rio Grande, it was pretty shallow – That’s why people who were stuck waiting under the bridge on the US side could cross back into Mexico pretty easily. So many people were walking back and forth that it created this line of people in the water – the “cortina” – connecting one river bank to another.
(SFX - STAND UP RIVER) “It’s about knee deep to cross (sounds of splashing, speaking Haitian Creole) People are walking through, carrying bottles of water, plastic containers.”
(AMBI – River Sounds 2)
(Eli) It’s morning and I’m stepping on slippery concrete wading across the Rio Grande river. Nearby, some Haitians are bathing or brushing their teeth. It’s awkward to be here – alongside the other journalists and prying photographers – invading the little privacy people have as they start their day. (ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 2:21)
(SFX STAND UP RIVER) “People are carrying bags and shoes as they cross… Their jeans are pulled up as high as they can be.”
(Eli) That’s where I saw a young man sitting down on a paved part of the river bank. (AMBI: MARIA RIVER) Unlike the dozens of Haitians walking by – rushing to be somewhere else – he was just calmly sitting there. He tells me it’s cool to sit down next to him. We strike up a conversation and I ask if he’d be up for an interview. He’s a little wary, but I show him it’s just a voice recording.
(SFX: “Solo es audio…voy a grabar asi… dale no mas”)
He agrees. His name is Exode (EX-ohd), like Exodus. I ask about the “cortina” - the line of people crossing the river in both directions.
“Están entrando o son gente que sale a comprar. Porque alla dan algo pero el poco que den no es suficiente para ir a aguantarse.”
(Eli) He says some are just now arriving at the camp – others are buying food in Mexico to bring it back. Officials aren’t giving enough, he says. His wife and son are under the bridge. This is their third day waiting. Exode says it’s overwhelmed with people. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 3:05
“Yo veo como esta ahora, yo lo veo un poquito colapsado porque es mucha gente.”
I ask him about how he ended up here in Del Rio, all the way from Haiti. How did he know Spanish?
“Vengo de Haiti… al comienzo de 2018.”
(Eli) He says he left Haiti in 2018 because of the violence and the political crisis and moved to a city in north-central Chile called Coquimbo.
“La política es una crisis, es una crisis muy, muy grave. ¿Me entiende… para uno quedarse allá. No tiene seguridad.”
(AMBI: EXODE TALKS TO FRIENDS)
(Eli) We chat while his phone charges along a chain link fence up from the riverbank. I ask why he ended up leaving Chile – a relatively stable country. He says he tried for three years to get immigration papers, so he could stay there legally – and do things the “right way.” But he was ultimately denied.
“Tres años en un país sin tener un papel, lo encuentro imposible.”
Three years in a country without papers, it’s impossible… EXODE says. When he received a final visa rejection earlier in the year, it was the final push to leave – and take the perilous journey to the U.S. – where he believed he would be welcomed with open arms. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 3:58
¿Si hubiera otra forma para salir de esa forma, pero cómo de esa forma no encuentro, tenía que salir de esa forma.”
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If there had been any other way, he would have tried that. But there wasn’t.
(MUSIC BEGINS)
(Joey) Exode’s (EX-ode) number eventually was called by border officials. He was released and has an open immigration case. His family made it to Florida, where he got a job at a restaurant.
(Eli) Many others weren’t so lucky – and it really did seem to be luck or random chance that decided these people’s fates.
(Joey) Because while Exode (EX-ode) and some other Haitians were released into the United States by immigration officials… for others, their migration journey took a different turn.
That’s coming next, after this break. Joey - RETRAX EP1 - LITL.wav 4:58
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(Eli) We’re back. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 5:35
(Eli) Faced with this humanitarian crisis in Del Rio the Biden administration took drastic measures…
SFX1
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(SOUND EFFECT DEMARKING NEWS CLIPS)
SFX: NPR Title 42 The US is starting to fly Haitians back to their country after thousands were found along the southern border….
(Eli) They loaded up airplanes with Haitian women, men and children who had been under the bridge and began flying them back to Haiti. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 5:59
SFX: CNN Title 42 end at “flights taking most of the refugees back to haiti”
(Joey) They did this even though back in May, the administration had granted Haitian immigrants already in this country something known as Temporary Protected Status - basically saying that conditions in Haiti were so bad that no Haitians should be deported back to that country.
(Eli) Soo.. it’s no wonder why Haitians in Latin America thought it was a good time to make the journey. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 11:56
SFX: PBS Title 42 the biden administration is struggling to deal with migrants at the US Mexico border…. The current influx is straining resources and sowing confusion for migrants on both sides of the border.
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(Eli) They justified sending thousands of Haitians back under something called Title 42. And it’s actually related to the pandemic. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 12:40
(Joey) The CDC essentially closed down the border to asylum seekers at the start of COVID. Allegedly to keep the virus from spreading. Even though many public health experts thought the measure wouldn’t help. Joey - RETRAX EP1 - LITL.wav 12:58
(Eli) Here’s Jessica Bolter, border expert at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute: ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 13:06
“Regardless of whether you fear persecution in the country where you're coming from, or not, you can be expelled under Title 42.(Jessica Bolter)
(SHIFT)
(Joey) So Haitians at the camp who had previously fled Haiti, then moved to South America, and then took buses, taxis and hiked on foot through Central America… were sent back to Haiti. Joey - RETRAX EP1 - LITL.wav 14:04
(Eli) That happened to more than six thousand Haitians who were at the Del Rio border camp. And….. just weeks after the Haitian president was assassinated. Guerline Jozef - the Haitian immigrant advocate - again: ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 14:08
“One day, the United States put a high alert, do not travel to Haiti. If you are a US citizen in Haiti, you must leave immediately. And the same day they sent five planes full with children, babies, pregnant women to Haiti the same day.” (Guerline Jozef)
(Joey) Haiti was already in chaos, and now the country saw thousands of returnees – many with Brazilian or Chilean children, with no ties to Haiti. Joey - RETRAX EP1 - LITL.wav 15:24
“The political turmoil in Haiti, the insecurity in Haiti is forcing displacement in country, pushing people to leave. And yet we continue to deport people into that same system.”
(Eli) In all, Customs and Border Protection in the Del Rio sector sent about 40% of Haitians back to Haiti from September to the end of the year. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 15;31
(Joey) The Biden administration faced its first big test at the border. From a political standpoint, the Biden administration it was a (slow) tough situation to maneuver.
(Joey) This wasn’t the humane response that immigrant advocates had hoped for from the Biden administration. Bolter again: Joey - RETRAX EP1 - LITL.wav 15:51
“The increase in migrants in Del Rio in September, and the government's response to it really exemplified how caught in the middle the Biden administration seems to be.” (Bolter)
(Eli) But roughly 60% of migrants were released into the U-S to await immigration hearings. That angered immigration hawks. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 16:16
“So it did really seem to be almost a lose-lose situation on the political side of things.”
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(Eli) Word started to travel. Haitians waiting in the camp got scared. They had assumed that they would be allowed into the US. American asylum law actually gives people the right to ASK for asylum, if they are fleeing their countries because theY fear persecution. eli retrax trailer and e1 5.11.22.wav 4:33
(Joey) They had made it all this way. But then the threat of being flown back to Haiti was enough to send hundreds of Haitians out from under the bridge and back into Mexico.
(Eli) Among them was Dachka… Reporter Stephania Corpi first saw her wading in the Rio Grande river in that cortina we described earlier… she had been taking photos in chest-deep water when she spotted Dachka…ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 17:09
(Steph) 00:00 Tension was high.
4:04 You could feel morale was low, and most Haitians were exhausted. For many of the migrants, this was the climax of a long… dangerous journey.
And now… there were rumors they would be sent back to Haiti.
(Eli) Migrants were also agitated by the journalists and photographers capturing them at one of their lowest points…that’s why Stephania was surprised to catch someone… smiling at her.
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(Steph) SMILE
Dachka looked back at me, with a big smile, almost as if she was posing.
Even in that chaotic moment, with everyone moving in the water,
she was standing still… and strong.
(Eli) Dachka was headed back to Mexico with her husband and three-year-old son to avoid getting sent back to Haiti by the U-S.
Stephania asked her about it three days later… at a park right across the Rio Grande river in the Mexican city of Acuña. (SFX: PARK NAT)
(Steph) This park turned into a second migrant camp – on the Mexican side.
This is where Dachka and other migrants decided to move after leaving the US,
because they feared being expelled to Haiti.
(SFX: STEPH HELICOPTER NAT)
CORPI_24SEPT_HELICOPTER or CORPI_23SEPT_CHILD_CRYING_Helicopter
(Eli) The park is dry, dusty and lacking any kind of upkeep…helicopters fly overhead as migrants camp out in tents.
(Steph) I sit with Dachka looking for some shade.
We’re surrounded by tents put up by the people who moved there a couple of nights before.
She makes jokes about the long journey to get here.
”But the trip was good. I met a lot of people, and ate a lot of good food. I liked the food in Panama a lot. It was an experience.” (audio in Spanish)
(Steph) She says she liked the food – especially in Panama…
(Eli) Like other migrants, Dachka also came from Haiti originally. She left there after both her parents died and moved to Chile in 2016 when she was just 19. Dachka asked to go by her first name only, because of her ongoing asylum case.
(Steph) CHILDREN’S BOOK Stephania Re-Tracking EP1_4.29.22.wav 5:11
There, at the park surrounded by Mexican guards,
kids are playing soccer, hide and seek…
Dachka’s son, Lowensky, is crying over something all kids cry over
(SFX: Lowensky cries)
(Steph) He’s fighting over a blue car.
Dachka calms him. She has a lot on her mind as she watches her son play.
It’s the first night they’ll be sleeping in the park and her husband is looking
for a spot and a tent at the makeshift camp.
“Todavia no tengo carpa… no tengo porque estaba en un hotel. Mi esposo está andando a buscar carpa. Parece que no encuentro.”
(Steph) We still don’t have a tent, she says.
She’s not sure what they’ll do if her husband doesn’t find one.
Still, she seems confident things will work out.
(Eli) After their family’s odyssey across the Americas, they’ve reached a wall.. A line in the land. They’re both trying to make it work. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 23:08
(Steph) Dachka tries to put on a brave face in her donated, blue and white dress…
but suddenly… she breaks.
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“Siento que ahora no tengo corazon.”
(Steph) I dooon’t have a heart for this any longer, she says…
(SFX: Dachka cries) “Cuando veo como anda el hijo que esta en el pasillo, porque ?? tierra, como se acostumbra en esta vida… ahora no se que hacer, ahora no tengo sentimiento para hacer nada…para pensar no se. No se de verdad que hacer. No se. No se.”
(Eli) She says when she looks at her son – a Chilean citizen – she doesn’t know how to think or feel or what to do.
“A mi me da lo mismo que me mandan a Haiti porque es mi pais pero a él no…Mi hijo no es nacido alla en Haiti.”
(Steph) (despacito)
It’s all the same to me if they send me back to Haiti because it’s my country – she says – but for him no, my son wasn’t born there. If he goes to school there, she fears he won’t come home alive. (despacito)
“Si mi hijo va a escuela no se si va a entrar la casa de nuevo.”
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(Eli) And even in the camp in Mexico, there’s no assurance they won’t be sent back to Haiti. In the Mexican camp, immigration agents take pictures of the migrants and ask them to add their names to a list. Dozens of armed security guards control both sides of the river.
(BEAT)
Despite their presence, kids laugh and play.
“No entiende nada los niños, no entiende, se siente feliz ahora porque no entienden nada.”
(Steph) Children don’t understand anything, Dachka says, that’s why they feel happy. Suddenly, another little girl at the camp says –
“Solo quiere jugar!” (Use tape of their interaction generously)
(Steph) He only wants to play, the five-year-old tells me.
I’m not sure if she means Dachka’s son, or her, or children in general.
Cuantos años tienes? Cinco! Mira…Uno dos tres cuatro cinco!”
(Eli) We’ve talked about what makes this story unique… covering this, it was striking to see how young Haitian families were… Parents in their twenties and thirties, pregnant and with toddlers, their lives ahead of them.
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(Joey) That’s also why decisions in moments like this weigh so heavily. These Haitian parents are making them with their kids’ futures in mind. The decision whether or not to cross back into the U.S. and whether to start a life in Mexico weighs heavily on Dachka, especially as she thinks of what’s best for her son.
(Eli) Is staying at the border camp on the US side worth the risk of being sent back to Haiti? For those who stay in Mexico, what does life look like there for a Haitian-Chilean toddler? And what was the rationale for the U.S. to let some Haitians in and send others back to Haiti?
(Joey) In this podcast, we’ll see how Dachka’s story – and others – play out. How they’re faced with impossible decisions, dealing with larger forces – politics, poverty, disaster – pushing and pulling them across the Americas.
(Eli) And in our next episode, we’ll look specifically at why so many Haitians first immigrated to South America. How did a far-off nation like Chile end up being a Haitian destination?
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(Joey) Here’s Eugene, who you’ll meet in our next episode. When he first arrived in Chile, he says, the cold hit him in the stomach.
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“Me baje del avión y al salir de avión el frio me dijo ‘bienvenido’ me pego en el estomago. Ahí me di cuenta que no estoy en mi país.” (Eugene)
(Eli) That’s when he knew he wasn’t in his country anymore.
That’s in the next episode of LINE IN THE LAND... ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 23:45
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(Joey) LINE IN THE LAND is reported and produced by Elizabeth Trovall, Sofia Sanchez, Stephania Corpi…
(Eli) And Joey Palacios. Our editor is Alisa Barba.
(Joey) Cultural competency assessment by Myriam Chancy (Meer-ee-am Chaw-see). Sound design and music by Jacob Rosati.
(Eli) Audio mixing by Bennett Smith. Special thanks to Dan Katz, Lily Thomas and Maria Reeve. ELI RETRAX 1 2 .wav 24:00
(Joey) LINE IN THE LAND is a production of Texas Public Radio in collaboration with the Houston Chronicle.
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Gustavo: And that’s it for this episode of THE TIMES, essential news from the LA Times.
LINE IN THE LAND is reported and produced by Elizabeth Trovall (TRO-vall), Sofia Sanchez, Stephania Corpi (CORE-pee)… And Joey Palacios. Their editor is Alisa Barba (BARB-uh).
Cultural competency assessment by Myriam Chancy (Meer-ee-am Chaw-see). Sound design and music by Jacob Rosati.
Audio mixing by Bennett Smith. And special thanks to Dan Katz, Lily Thomas and Maria Reeve.
LINE IN THE LAND is a production of Texas Public Radio in collaboration with the Houston Chronicle. You can find and follow the show and binge all the episodes in season 1 on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Times is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Brousalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera. Our intern is Surya Hendry. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.