Worried that a wall may soon bar their entry, immigrants from around the world are racing to get across the Mexico-U.S. border before Tuesday, when American voters elect a new president, reports Fox News.
The result is that agents “are overwhelmed,” said one in McAllen, Texas. “We are seeing 800 to 1,000 apprehensions every night.”
This recent Getty Images file photo shows a section of existing border wall near San Diego, Calif. (PHOTO: america.aljazeera.com)
Rio Grande Valley agent Chris Cabrera said people think that if one candidate wins “a giant wall will be built and that they can never get through. Another faction believes that if the other candidate wins, they’ll get amnesty if they’re here by a certain date.”
Republican candidate Donald Trump has promised to build a border wall to stop the movement of migrants into the U.S. With polls showing that the race between Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is close, the threat of a wall has become very real.
The surge in migrants, with a particularly large increase in those from Haiti, continues to put pressure on shelters in Mexican border towns.
The director of the Casa del Migrante in Tijuana said the city’s five shelters have capacity for 150 people, yet 500 to 700 are arriving each day. Patrick Murphy also said their costs have tripled yet government funding has remained unchanged at 25,000 pesos a month, reported the Tijuana news site Frontera.
Rodulfo Figueroa described it as “an extraordinary situation” but not a crisis, and that it was being addressed promptly particularly in terms of health and security.
Source: mexiconewsdaily.com