Migrants camped in Mexico want Joe Biden to win the November election — because Donald Trump will never let them into the United States if he returns to the White House.
Hundreds of migrants endure the muddy, smelly encampment in Matamoros as they wait for how long they don’t know for appointments with Customs and Border Protection.
But they all have one major concern that is completely out of their control. If they don’t cross the line on Election Day, they will need Biden to gain the upper hand over Donald Trump.
During Trump’s first term, he slashed immigration by reducing the number of visas and green cards, and migrants fear he will destroy their only hope for legal entry.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of migrants endure the muddy, smelly encampment in Matamoros as they wait for appointments with Customs and Border Protection
The tents are slick with mold, the stench of the portable toilets wafts through the air and mixes with the smell of chickens cooking on outdoor fires
Just across the Rio Grande lies Brownsville, Texas, one of the largest border crossings, both controlled and irregular, along the southern border
“I want Biden to win,” said Daniel Cortez, 45, a mechanic from Honduras The free press.
His friend Richard Betancourt, 46, a pipefitter who fled Venezuela, agreed as they sat under a tarp out of the drizzle.
“If it’s Trump, it doesn’t matter how much I work or want to work. They won’t let me in,” he said.
Another migrant, Alejandra Falcon, 26, added: “If he doesn’t win, I can’t imagine what will happen.”
Until they receive the email with the appointment time, they wait, vaguely hoping that their time will come and that their months-long journey will not be in vain.
The tents are slick with mildew, the stench of the portable toilets wafts through the air, mixed with the smell of chickens cooking on outdoor fires, with shoes ruined by the journey, discarded dolls and assorted rubbish piled at the edge.
Just across the Rio Grande lies Brownsville, Texas, one of the largest border crossings, both controlled and irregular, along the southern border, which is an ongoing flashpoint in the immigration crisis.
Unlike the roughly 10,000 migrants who swim across the river, scale walls and clamber through barbed wire to cross the border every day, the asylum seekers in this camp applied through the CBP One app.
The app allows them to apply for asylum and wait for an interview at the border, after which they are released to the U.S. pending a hearing to determine the validity of their claim.
Tanya Guadalupe of Honduras is pictured alone at the mass camp with her three children, Kenny, 6, and Brian, 2, in Matamoros, Mexico. Guadalupe is also pregnant with a fourth child
A woman from Honduras holds her three-year-old daughter as she sits with a group who have returned to Mexico awaiting their U.S. asylum hearing, as they block the Puerta Mexico international border crossing bridge to demand speed in their asylum
A large migrant camp, consisting mainly of Venezuelans, is being set up along the Rio Grande in Matamoros
Trump talked about building a wall to keep migrants out during his four years in the White House, but failed to stem the flow of people across the border and deported fewer people than Barack Obama.
Instead, he reduced legal immigration by making it harder to get visas and greens cards.
Shortly after Biden removed him from office, millions of desperate migrants sought a way north as the Venezuelan economy went into freefall and the country descended into lawlessness.
The vast majority of migrants waiting at the border, or skipping the wait by sneaking across, are Venezuelans fleeing the all-consuming chaos of their country.
Among them are Alejandra and her brother Lionel, 23, who embarked on the arduous 2,300-kilometre journey from Caracas eight months ago and met fellow countryman Christian Mohammed, 24, at a bus station in Panama.
The six-week journey included four buses, 20 vans and the extremely dangerous walk across the Darién Gap from Colombia to Panama, risking death while fording rivers, crossing jungles and climbing mountains.
A church showed up to offer migrant Bibles, dry rice and dry beans, which will be difficult for them to cook
That Alejandra was not raped and her companions were not robbed, and no one was bitten by a poisonous snake, was more than a minor miracle.
‘We are here as a family. We know everyone. We take care of each other,” she said of the camp, despite the hardships.
None of the trio worried that many Americans wouldn’t want them in their country because the alternative was so bleak.
“No matter what happens, it will be roses, because it will be better than where we came from,” said Lionel, who wants to join a friend who works at a nightclub in Louisville, Kentucky.
The migrants are embroiled in a clash between the two major U.S. political parties, making the border issue seem increasingly unresolvable.
As two million people a year flooded the border, Biden sought to address the issue with a bipartisan bill drafted in the Senate after months of negotiations.
Not only did he have to deal with the usual partisan bickering, the left flank of the Democratic Party was determined to keep the border completely open.
Many other, more moderate Democrats did little to stop them for fear of appearing racist.
Just when it looked like a solution was near, Trump bullied Republicans in the House of Representatives into killing the bill so he could use the immigration crisis to crush Biden in the election campaign.
The asylum seekers in this camp applied to legally enter the US through the CBP One app
The migrants all have one big concern: If they don’t make it to the border on Election Day, they will need Joe Biden to gain the upper hand over Donald Trump, fearing he will cut off their path to legal entry.
The bill would have tried to fix a major problem with the immigration system that the CBP One app tried to address, but could only do a partial job.
Asylum seekers claiming sanctuary in the U.S. must show that they have been persecuted or otherwise fear violence in their home countries and that they had little choice but to flee.
Whether they apply through the app or cross the border and surrender to authorities, they will receive a “notice to appear” before an immigration court to plead their case.
Migrants only have to say they have a ‘credible fear’ of returning and be allowed in – the evidence will come before the court later.
This naturally leads many migrants who want to come to the US for a better life than poverty, gang violence or entrenched corruption to say they fear for their lives.
Such people would be denied asylum and deported, but the system has been so overloaded for decades that it takes five to nine years to get a trial.
Until then, migrants are let loose, with or without work permits, to roam the US voluntarily, or after being packed onto a bus by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott and sent to a city like New York or Chicago.
By the time the trial arrives, many migrants are difficult, if not impossible, to find.
Biden’s immigration bill, he claimed in the State of the Union, would have reduced the wait time to six months or even six weeks.
Instead, public services are being expanded beyond their borders, from Texas to New York, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, as more and more migrants arrive destitute and need help getting on their feet.