EAGLE PASS, Texas — A new caravan with 3,000 migrants is heading north to the US on Election Day in what Border Patrol officials are describing as a mad dash to cross the border while President Biden is still in office.
The caravan was seen heading out of Tapachula, 50 miles from the Guatemalan border in southern Mexico, on Tuesday. Photos show countless men, women and children who are taking part in the grueling, 2,000-mile journey to America.
A US Border Patrol source told The Post the agency was well aware that the US elections would trigger a new wave of mass migration.
Another source added: “We knew that was coming because they want to get in before ‘orange bad man’ wins.”
More than 10 million migrants will have been caught crossing the border illegally by the time Biden leaves office in January, according to an estimate by the House Committee on Homeland Security.
The administration saw its biggest surge last year after the Trump-era Title 42 ended, with more than 1 million people rushing to the border to try to enter within the span of a few months.
It was not clear as of press time whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would win the election.
Many migrants fear that should Trump take office on Jan. 20, he would bring a complete halt to America’s asylum program — giving migrants an incentive to get across the border before that.
Trump has made illegal immigration one of the biggest platforms of his campaign, vowing to make the border his first priority and deport millions of undocumented immigrants if he’s returned to the White House.
Even if Trump loses, migrants have little assurance over the future of the border as Harris has echoed the need to strengthen the border in the final weeks of her campaign.
Members of the latest caravan said they were worried about the trip north, finding some comfort in the masses that provide safety from Mexico’s cartels.
“We want US authorities to see us, to see that we are people who want to work, not to harm anyone,” said Honduran migrant Roy Murillo, who was traveling with his pregnant wife and two kids.
“Here, the cartels either kidnap you or kill you,” he told Reuters.
The caravan’s trip comes just weeks after another group of 2,000 migrants left Tapachula for the US.
“[They] will make it,” one Border Patrol source told The Post of the caravan. “They always do.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Mexican border in Eagle Pass, Texas, it was business as usual as border agents continued to deal with a stream of migrants crossing illegally into the US.
Early Tuesday, a group of nine migrants entered the country, guided by coyotes who waded them across the Rio Grande using an inner tube.
The group, which consisted of migrant families and two unaccompanied children from Central and South America, trekked through the strong rapids and islands onto US soil, where they were picked up by Border Patrol agents in a neighborhood full of million-dollar homes.
The group was taken into a bus for further processing.
Eagle Pass has seen a huge surge of mass migrant crossings ahead of the election, with more than 300 migrants turning themselves in to border agents each day in Maverick County, according to multiple Border Patrol sources.
While overall encounters over the border continue to decrease, with the Border Patrol catching 54,000 migrants in September, a 7.2% drop from August, the Biden administration has overseen some of the highest peaks of migration in recent US history.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/caravan-of-3000-migrants-rushes-for-us-border-on-election-day/
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