(Dolores Hidalgo) About 3,000 migrants from a dozen countries left southern Mexico on foot on Sunday as they tried to reach the US border.
Some members of the group said they hope to reach the U.S. border before the November election because they fear Donald Trump will fail to keep his promise to close the border to asylum seekers if he wins.
“We run the risk of being denied permits to cross the border,” lamented Miguel Salazar, an immigrant from El Salvador.
He feared the new Trump administration would stop granting appointments to immigrants through CBP One, a process asylum seekers used to enter the U.S. legally — securing interviews at U.S. border crossings, where they present their documents to authorities.
The app only works once migrants reach Mexico City or the northern states of Mexico.
“Everybody wants to go this route,” said 37-year-old Miguel Salazar.
The group left on Sunday from Ciudad Hidalgo, a southern Mexican city located next to a river that marks the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
Photo by Jose Torres, Reuters
Families walk with their children
Some said they waited weeks in Ciudad Hidalgo for permits to travel to cities further north.
In recent years, migrants trying to pass through Mexico have organized large groups to reduce the risk of being attacked by gangs or arrested by Mexican immigration officials during their journey.
But caravans are dispersed in southern Mexico as people tire of traveling hundreds of miles on foot.
Recently, Mexico has also made it more difficult for migrants to reach the US border by bus and train.
Migrants who enter the country without visas are rarely granted travel permits, and thousands of them are stopped by immigration officials at checkpoints in central and northern Mexico and then taken by bus to cities in the country’s south.
Osvaldo Reyna, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant who crossed from Guatemala to Mexico 45 days ago, was waiting in Ciudad Hidalgo to join a new caravan announced on social media.
He criticized Trump’s recent comments about immigrants and how they are trying to “invade” America.
“We are not guilty,” he declared. We are hard working people who left our country for advancement in life because we are suffering from many needs in our country. »
