EXCLUSIVE: ‘We Are So Worried’: Migrants Are Telling Each Other To Rush To The US Border As Midterm Election Results Loom

EXCLUSIVE: ‘We Are So Worried’: Migrants Are Telling Each Other To Rush To The US Border As Midterm Election Results Loom

Jennie Taer on November 8, 2022

Migrants are telling each other that the door is closing on their window to cross the border illegally into the U.S. as midterm election results loom, several migrants waiting to cross into Mexico told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Yes, people are saying that,” one migrant, Ali, who is from Afghanistan, told the DCNF. “It’s much harder than the past days. One of my friends told me from last month. People do say it may be harder because of the election.”

A predicted red wave in Tuesday’s midterm elections could mean that border policies will become more stringent. If they win back a majority, Republicans will make border security their first priority, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN Monday.

“I think the first thing you’ll see is a bill to control the border first. You’ve got to get control over the border,” McCarthy told the outlet.

The message has been trickling down for weeks, Guatemalan Interior Minister Napoleon Barrientos exclusively told the DCNF in an interview in Guatemala City in late October.

“The information that these migrant caravans have is that after that date, policies will be hardened,” Barrientos said at the time.

Jennie Taer//Daily Caller News Foundation

Other migrants who made it further north informed Ali of Tuesday’s midterms, he said.

Another migrant from Afghanistan, Akhbar, said he’s also fearing things could get harder for them to enter the U.S., in a conversation with the DCNF.

“We are so worried,” he said. “We heard that it’s not easy to get to the USA now.”

Another migrant, Ino, who’s from Ghana, told the DCNF that he’s rushing to get to the U.S. on Tuesday night and paid a smuggler $250 to smuggle him from Tijuana, Mexico into California.

The Biden administration reversed a number of Trump-era immigration policies used to discourage and even more easily deport illegal migrants, the latest of which was the “Remain in Mexico” policy used to expel illegal migrants to Mexico as they await immigration proceedings. The policies have ushered in a record surge of roughly 2.3 million migrants encountered at the southern border.

The migrants waiting in Mexico hope to follow in the footsteps of the millions that have crossed under a Democratic controlled White House and Congress.