Hundreds of migrants leave for US on foot from Mexico. Can they reach before US Presidential Election?

Hundreds of migrants from around a dozen countries left for the US border on foot on Sunday before the Presidential Elections takes place in November. Some members of the group said they hoped to make it to the border before the elections as they fear if former president Donald Trump wins the race to the White House, he will be bent to keep his promise to close the border for asylum seekers.

“We are running the risk that permits (to cross the border) might be blocked”, said an immigrant from El Salvador. Many like him fear that the Trump administration might stop granting appointments to migrants through CBP One, an application used by asylum seekers to enter the States legally. The app gives them appointment timings to go meet the officials posted at the border where they get to present their cases.

The tricky thing for the migrants is that the application starts functioning only when the immigrants reach Mexico City. In recent years, migrants trying to pass through Mexico have organised large groups to fend off attacks by gangs and harassment by Mexican immigration officials as they travel. But the groups tend to break up as people get tired of walking for hundreds of miles.

In addition to this, Mexico has made it tougher for immigrants to reach the US border via trains and buses. Travel permits are rarely awarded to these immigrants who enter Mexico without visas. Thousands of cases are there where these immigrants have entered Mexico illegally and have been detained at various checkpoints by immigration officials in central and north Mexico. After investigation they are deported via bus to the South of the country.

The immigrants have quite a strong opposition towards Donald Trump and has stated that they are hard working people who have left their homeland due to various needs and are not delinquents.