Hundreds of migrants leave southern Mexico on foot in new caravan heading to US border

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (AP) — Hundreds of migrants from about a dozen countries set out on foot from Mexico’s southern border on Sunday in an attempt to reach the U.S. border.

Some members of the group said they hoped to reach the U.S. border before the November election, fearing that Donald Trump, if he wins, will follow through on his promise to close the border to asylum seekers.

“We are at risk of having permits (to cross the border) blocked,” said Miguel Salazar, a migrant from El Salvador. He feared a new Trump administration could stop granting migrants appointments through CBP One, an app asylum seekers use to enter the U.S. legally — booking appointments at U.S. border crossings, where they present their cases to officials.

The app only works once migrants reach Mexico City or one of the states in northern Mexico.

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

The group left on Sunday from the southern Mexican town of Ciudad Hidalgo, which is located on a river that forms the border between Mexico and Guatemala.

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

Migrants attempting to travel through Mexico in recent years have organized large groups to reduce the risk of being attacked by gangs or stopped by Mexican immigration officials along the way. But the caravans tend to break up in southern Mexico as people tire of walking hundreds of miles.

Mexico has also recently made it more difficult for migrants to reach the US border by bus or train.

Travel permits are rarely issued to migrants who enter the country without visas. Thousands of migrants have been stopped by immigration officials at checkpoints in central and northern Mexico and bused back to cities deep in the south of the country.

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

He criticized Trump’s recent comments about migrants and the way they are trying to invade the United States.

“We are not delinquents,” he said. “We are hardworking people who left our country to advance in life, because in our homeland we suffer from many needs.”

Edgar H. Clemente, The Associated Press