Thousands of Haitian migrants who flocked to Del Rio were already working and living comfortably as refugees in CHILE
The majority of the Haitian migrants have come from Chile – the wealthiest country in Latin America – and Brazil – the fifth wealthiest – where they have been living in modest comfort in Santiago and São Paulo for the past five or six years.
There are an estimated 150,000 Haitians in Chile and around 125,000 in Brazil – tiny fractions of the two million that live in the United States.
But as US immigration rules became tougher, people desperate to leave the impoverished island began to look to South America as a haven.