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Hundreds of migrants leave Mexico for US border ahead of election fears

Many in the group are driven by the fear that if former US President Donald Trump wins the election, he will fulfill his promise to close the border to asylum seekers.

AP

Migrants walk along the highway through Suchiate, Chiapas state in southern Mexico, Sunday, July 21, 2024, during their journey north toward the U.S. border. / Photo: AP

Hundreds of migrants from around a dozen countries left Mexico’s southern border on foot, as they attempt to make it to the US border.

Some of the members of the group said they hoped to make it to the US border before elections are held in November because they fear that if Donald Trump wins, he will follow through on a promise to close the border to asylum-seekers.

“We are running the risk that permits (to cross the border) might be blocked,” said Miguel Salazar, a migrant from El Salvador. He feared that a new Trump administration might stop granting appointments to migrants through CBP One, an app used by asylum seekers to enter the US legally — by getting appointments at US border posts, where they make their cases to officials.

The app only works once migrants reach Mexico City, or states in northern Mexico.

“Everyone wants to use that route” said Salazar, 37.

AP

Travel permits are rarely awarded to migrants who enter the country without visas. / Photo:AP

Tired of walking

The group left on Sunday from the southern Mexican town of Ciudad Hidalgo, next to a river that marks Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

Some said they had been waiting in Ciudad Hidalgo for weeks, for permits to travel to towns further to the north.

Migrants trying to pass through Mexico in recent years have organised large groups to try to reduce the risk of being attacked by gangs or stopped by Mexican immigration officials as they travel. But the caravans tend to break up in southern Mexico, as people get tired of walking for hundreds of miles.

Recently, Mexico has also made it more difficult for migrants to reach the US border by bus and train.

AP

Migrants trying to pass through Mexico in recent years have organised large groups to try to reduce the risk of being attacked by gangs or stopped by Mexican immigration officials. /Photo: AP

Trump's comments

Travel permits are rarely awarded to migrants who enter the country without visas and thousands of migrants have been detained by immigration officers at checkpoints in the centre and north of Mexico, and bused back to towns deep in the south of the country.

Oswaldo Reyna a 55-year-old Cuban migrant crossed from Guatemala into Mexico 45 days ago, and waited in Ciudad Hidalgo to join the new caravan announced on social media.

He criticised Trump's recent comments about migrants and how they are trying to “invade” the United States.

“We are not delinquents,” he said. “We are hard-working people who have left our country to get ahead in life because in our homeland we are suffering from many needs.”