Migrants race to reach US before Trump takes over

SASABE, Mexico: Migrants trying to sneak into the United States from the parched Mexican desert have to contend with border guards’ drones overhead, poisonous snakes underfoot and human trafficking gangs at their backs.

But these challenges are nothing compared to their bigger fear: that someday soon, US President- elect Donald Trump will build a wall to keep them out altogether.

So before Trump takes office on Friday, they are racing against time, riding a freight train up to the border to look for a way across.

In the town of Caborca near the frontier, a group of Hondurans warm themselves by a fire of trash in the early morning cold.

One of them, Wilson, a 48-yearold builder, missed the birth of his daughter to make the journey. Getting to the United States before Trump takes control was more important.

“When I saw that man on the television saying how he hated migrants and was going to build a wall, I thought: ‘It’s now or never,” said Wilson, who would not give his last name.

“So we all spent Christmas and New Year traveling to try to get here in time. We want to beat him to it.”

Mexican authorities are arresting thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of undocumented migrants each month, according to government figures.

Governors of several northern states this week called for extra resources to deal with the surge.

Laura Ramirez, a local charity activist, has been serving more than 200 free lunches a day to migrants.

“There are more and more migrants coming,” she says.

In the border town of Sasabe, marks in the rust on the border fence appear to show a spot where migrants climbed over, says Sergio Flores, leader of a government migrant task force.

“They have been getting sophisticated” in their efforts to get across undetected, he says.

Nearby on the sand lies a bottle of water, painted black – a common trick to stop the plastic shining in the sun and catching the eye of border guards.

That is just part of the typical migrant survival kit, Flores says.

The migrants wear soft- soled slippers so as not to leave footprints in the sand, along with camouflage clothes and masks. — AFP