“I am asking President Trump to follow his heart.” Migrants head to the US, some stay in Mexico

They have just crossed the Guatemala-Mexico border and still have a whole huge country to cross, but they believe they will make it to the United States before Donald Trump's inauguration.

– I ask President Trump to follow his heart. He has a family too. We just want to find a job. We will work and show that Venezuelans can work hard, says Nestor Pina, an immigrant from Venezuela.

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The caravan of three thousand immigrants includes citizens of Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Honduras. They flee their homelands from terrible living conditions. They fear that this may be their last chance before the new administration tightens the rules for applying for asylum.

– I never thought I would leave my country. I didn't dream of America, but you can't live in Honduras. The country is run by a drug mafia, everything is expensive. Previously, I lived a quiet life and ate dinner in restaurants. Now I can't even afford to buy rice or eggs, says Gilberto Rosales, an immigrant from Honduras.

Donald Trump announced mass deportations and a large-scale crackdown on immigration from the first day he took office, which is scheduled to take place on January 20. Some people are motivated by this, while others, on the contrary, have been deprived of all hope. One group of immigrants has already surrendered and a train is scheduled to take them to Mexico City. This is their new goal.

According to an analysis of government data by The New York Times, the increase in immigration over the past four years was the largest in U.S. history and exceeded the great immigration boom of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. As of 2021, more than 8 million people have arrived in the United States.

“The combined increase in legal and illegal immigration has pushed the percentage of the U.S. population born in another country to a new high – 15.2 percent – in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high – in 1890 – was 14.8 percent,” writes The New York Times.

More than half of the immigrants who came to the US since the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency crossed the border illegally. “Several factors contributed to the sharp increase, starting with President Biden's friendly immigration policies during his first three years in office,” notes The New York Times.

In his last year in office, Joe Biden changed his policy slightly, which is why it has recently become more difficult to get to the United States. Some immigrants are stuck in a temporary camp in Mexico, where they face increasing violence.

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– I cry every day. I want to go back to my country. I don't want to be here anymore. I suffer a lot. Men treat us badly, people die. there are many cases of sexual abuse, women are treated badly because they have no money. It's terrible, terrible, says Yuleidi Moreno, an immigrant from Venezuela.

– People traveling along the migration route through our country are exposed to increasingly brutal methods of exploitation: kidnapping, extortion and all kinds of violence, abuse, beatings, rape. They are also exposed to extreme weather conditions and long hikes without rest – warns Yotibel Moreno, representative of Doctors Without Borders.

Donald Trump claims that Mexico is deliberately shaping its policies to enable immigrants to reach the United States. He threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all products from this country if the problem was not resolved.