New migrant caravan leaves southern Mexico on foot to head for US border

Hundreds of migrants from around a dozen countries have left Mexico’s southern border on foot as they attempt to reach the US border.

Some of the group said they hoped to make it to the US border before elections are held in November because they fear that if Donald Trump wins, he will follow through on a promise to close the border to asylum-seekers.

He feared that a new Trump administration might stop granting appointments to migrants through CBP One, an app used by asylum-seekers to enter the US legally at US border posts, where they make their cases to officials.

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

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

The group left on Sunday from the southern Mexican town of Ciudad Hidalgo, which is next to a river that marks Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

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

Mexico has recently made it more difficult for migrants to reach the US border on buses and trains.Travel permits are rarely awarded to migrants who enter the country without visas and thousands have been detained by immigration officers at checkpoints in the centre and north of Mexico and taken back to towns deep in the south.

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

He criticised Mr Trump’s recent comments about migrants and how they are trying to “invade” the US.

“We are not delinquents,” he said. “We are hard-working people who have left our country to get ahead in life, because in our homeland we are suffering from many needs.”