U.S. and Mexico work together to address Haitian refugee crisis

Their trek begins in Brazil. Haitians then travel 7,100-miles up the west coast of South America and Central America, crossing 11 countries and taking as long as four months to reach Mexico.

The is the heartbreaking journey of Haitian refugees, caught between a country that doesn’t want them and one that doesn't have the resources to provide them with the help that they need.

According to Minister of the Interior Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, the U.S. government says it is committed to helping Mexico address the conditions of the Haitians who are currently stranded in several cities along the Mexico-U.S. border in the hopes of being granted asylum by the U.S. government.

At a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Osorio Chong said that Mexico is committed to protecting the humanitarian rights of the refugees while in Mexico.

“This is a topic of conversation we had with Secretary Johnson. On Mexico's part, we're are committed to providing the humanitarian conditions necessary to ensure their stability and well-being while in our country and on the U.S.'s part, they will try to expedite the process to determine their migratory status as quickly as possible. By doing this, we're streamlining our efforts in order to address the Haitian refugee crisis as quickly and in the best way as possible,” said Osorio Chong.

At the conference, Secretary Johnson said he's “sympathetic to the plight of the people of Haiti as a result of Hurricane Matthew," but after conditions change, "we intend to resume the policy” of deporting refugees back to their country of origin.

With respect to African migrants and migrants from all over the world traveling through South America and Mexico to reach the U.S., Secretary Johnson asked "his people" at Homeland Security to work with the governments of the countries through which the migrants are crossing to reach Mexico and eventually the U.S. in order to work towards intercepting them and deporting them back to their countries before they manage to reach the Mexican-U.S. border.