‘Amistad’ binds Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña amid migrant crisis

By JUAN A. LOZANO and MARÍA VERZA
Associated Press

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — The “amistad,” or friendship, that Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, celebrate with a festival each year has been important in helping them deal with the challenges from a migrant camp that shut down the border bridge between the two communities for more than a week. Since the Sept. 17 shutdown, thousands of residents in both cities haven’t been able to stick to their routines of going back and forth for work or medical appointments. Federal officials announced the border crossing would reopen to passenger traffic late Saturday afternoon and to cargo traffic on Monday. On Friday, the camp on the U.S. side that once held as many as 15,000 mostly Haitian refugees was completely cleared.