Hundreds of migrants at a shelter on the Mexican side of the southern border say they are waiting anxiously to see if they can cross into the U.S. before President-elect Trump takes office and fear they may not get over the line in time.
According to a report in The Telegraph, more than 850 migrants are living at Senda de Vida shelter in the northern Mexican city of Reynosa, a town bordering McAllen, Texas. Many of them have applied using the CBP One app, which was created in 2020 to schedule appointments at points of entry into the U.S.
The migrants have been waiting for months to see if they can get an appointment to legally claim asylum via the app. If their appointment does not come in time, they say they will be forced to attempt to cross the border illegally, risking deportation or being preyed on by the cartels.
The mood at the camp, which consists of tents and small wooden buildings, quickly turned from hope to fear in the wake of President-elect Trump’s crushing defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris last week.
Raquel Segura, 39, from Nuevo León, Mexico, tells the outlet that he and his two daughters are among those hoping to cross the border.
“If Harris had won, people would be jumping for joy and as you can see right now, they look sad, they are feeling down,” Silva tells The Telegraph.
One of Trump’s top election promises is to close the border and launch the largest deportation operation in the history of the United States. He has tapped former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Thomas Homan to be his border czar.
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Homan, a former New York state police officer and former Border Patrol agent, is known as an immigration hardliner. At the Republic National Convention, he warned the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. to “start packing now,” and has also warned Democrat governors to “get the hell out of the way” if they plan to block the incoming administration’s mass deportation plans.
Homan said during an appearance on Fox & Friends that he supports Trump’s mass deportation plan, saying he would be prioritizing “public safety threats and national security threats.”
Illegal border crossings surged under the Biden administration, with nearly 3 million in fiscal year 2024, according to Homeland Security’s website. There have been more than 10.8 million illegal encounters since FY 2021.
Another migrant, Berta Lisa Matute, tells the outlet that she, her husband and their eldest daughter, 5, were forced to leave Honduras nine-months-ago after her brother was murdered and their lives were threatened. She gave birth to another child recently while at the camp, having carried her through their passage across Central America.
“I hope that God illuminates Trump so he doesn’t get rid of the app, or that maybe there’s another way we can go through, because everything we have been through was very difficult,” she says.
“It’s not safe in Honduras, I would not want to go back, but if there are no legal pathways to enter the country, then we might try [to cross illegally].”
Migrant Francisco Gomez, 40, tells The Telegraph that he and his family left Honduras 10 months ago after a family member was murdered. They joined a caravan at Tapachula on the Guatemalan border and arrived in Reynosa two weeks later.
The father-of-one tells the outlet he’s not concerned about Trump’s election victory, as he trusts “God that he’s gonna be a good president, just like the way he was the first time.”
Pastor Hector Silva, who runs the shelter, hopes Trump will be compassionate to the migrants who are yearning for a better life in America, where they hope to work hard and raise their families in a safe environment.
“There are people that are doing things according to the law, according to the United States, and they won’t be doing things illegally,” Silva tells the migrant while leading prayers in the scorching heat.
“We do not want to do things by crossing the river, we want to walk across the bridge after waiting for our call.”
Fox News’ Taylor Penley contributed to this report.
