Interior minister: Haitian refugees in Mexico “not a Humanitarian crisis”

Interior Minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, recognized the recent wave of Haitian immigrants to Mexico, which he says will continue and its a problem that won't be resolved in the short term.

During a recent visit to Baja California aimed at finding a solution together with local government for the over 8,000 immigrants who've arrived in the past few weeks, the interior minister said that “this isn't a humanitarian crisis; it's an isolated case.”

“We expect this to problem to continue and there is no short-term solution in sight. Our president instructed the Secretary of Foreign Affairs [Claudia Ruiz] to continue talks with U.S. officials. We've negotiated that the U.S. accept 110 Haitian migrants per day, up from 36, but we need them to accept even more.”

At a press conference, the interior minister was questioned about how much aid the government will set aside to address this massive arrival of Haitian migrants, but he was reluctant to give exact details.

Osorio Chong said that several measures have been implemented since the problem began to address the medical needs of the Haitians and no incidents have been reported to date.

Local, state and federal government officials have said they are committed to ensuring the needs of the thousands of migrants, as well as to demonstrating the hospitality of the Mexican people and government in order to make this difficult journey a little better.

Osorio Chong also said that they aren't only holding talks with the U.S.; the Mexican government, through the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is also in talks with several Central American countries that have yet to establish any type of control or measures for addressing the plight of the Haitian migrants.

During his visit to Baja California, the interior minister visited a refugee camp in the city of Mexicali, where he was photographed meeting several Haitian migrants.