Immigrant Caravan Headed for US Ahead of November Election

A U.S. Border Patrol agent speaks to illegal immigrants in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20, 2022. John Moore/Getty Images

A caravan of several hundred migrants is heading for the southern U.S. border via Mexico, many of them hoping to enter the country illegally before the November presidential election and a possible second Donald Trump presidency.

The migrants hail from roughly a dozen nations. The group left on July 21 from the southern Mexican town of Ciudad Hidalgo, which is next to a river that marks Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

Some of the members of the group said they hoped to make it to the U.S. border before the election because they fear that if the 45th president regains the White House, he will immediately close the border.

“We are running the risk that permits (to cross the border) might be blocked,” Miguel Salazar, a migrant from El Salvador, said.

He said he worried that a new Trump administration might stop granting appointments to illegal aliens through CBP One—an app used by asylum-seekers to enter the United States by getting appointments at U.S. border posts, where they make their cases to officials.

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

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

Former President Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration if he’s elected in November. He has committed to restoring every border policy implemented during his previous administration, including completing the border wall.

He has promised to increase penalties for illegal entry and overstaying of visas while instituting the “largest deportation operation in American history,” according to the Trump 2024 campaign.

Illegal immigration has become a top concern of U.S. voters since 2021, when the number of illegal aliens entering the United States began to surge after President Joe Biden revoked several Trump border policies.

In fiscal year 2021, border patrol agents encountered 1.95 million illegal aliens, and they encountered more than 3 million in fiscal year 2023. In the first nine months of fiscal 2024, there have been 2.42 million encounters.

Arrests of criminal illegal aliens also have surged. In fiscal year 2017, there were 8,531 such arrests, and there were 2,438 in fiscal year 2020. The number rose to more than 15,000 last year.

Illegal Immigrant Surge

The Biden administration has taken steps recently to control the influx of illegal immigrants at the border. On June 4, President Joe Biden announced an executive order that would shut down asylum requests at the southern border if the average number of daily encounters exceeds 2,500.

The shutdown would be in effect until the average remains less than 1,500 for a week. Administration officials claimed that the measure was the most aggressive unilateral move by the president.

On July 16, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that the policy has helped “reduce the number of encounters at our Southwest Border by more than 50 percent.”

“In June, the Border Patrol recorded 83,536 encounters between ports of entry, the lowest number since January 2021, and below the number of encounters between ports of entry in June 2019, the last comparable year prior to the pandemic,” the department said.

A similar proposal to shut down the border in case of high encounter numbers was proposed in Congress this year. The bill would have closed the border if an average of 5,000 illegal immigrants were encountered per day.

However, most Republicans opposed the move. Rep. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said that the legislation would end up “establishing a new minimum number of illegal immigrants who must be admitted each day.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and a host of other groups sued the Biden administration over the June 4 proclamation, arguing that it “severely restricts asylum and puts thousands of lives at risk.”

In March, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced the “Verifying That All Aliens Have Legitimate Identification Documents” (VALID) Act, which seeks to prevent illegal aliens from exploiting any air travel loopholes for getting into the United States.

The act prohibits the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from accepting the CBP One app as legal identification for illegal immigrants while boarding flights and at TSA security checkpoints.

The Associated Press contributed to the report.