Migrants in Caravan Shrug Over US Vote, Eye Change at Home | World News

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) – The migrants in a caravan used by President Donald Trump as a campaign were almost universally unaware of the results of the U.S. midterm elections.

The Central Americans were more concerned with the dangers of northern Mexico as they struggled to reach the U.S. border, still remaining in control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Kenia Johana Hernandez, a 26-year-old Honduran farmworker, left her country with her 2-year-old daughter because she could not afford child care or schooling. Asked if she had anything to do with the U.S. elections, the answer was a simple, "No."

For her, the caravan was merely a safety measure. "If I had come alone with just my daughter, maybe I would not have done it because it was so dangerous," she said.

Gilberta Raula, 38, from Samala, Guatemala, joined the caravan at the Mexican border because it seemed her best luck to get her 15-year-old daughter out of the country. She left six other children behind, but wants to give her daughter an opportunity to study and work.

She had only the vaguest idea of ​​the issues surrounding Tuesday's U.S. midterms.

What she did know, she said, was that "the U.S. president has acted badly."

"The way we hear it, he does not like anybody," she said of Trump. Told that Trump's Republican party had lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives said, "Ah, good." She, like others, expressed hope that she might help their chances of finding refuge.

Franklin Martinez, a 46-year-old farmworker from La Esperanza, Honduras, said Wednesday he'd probably stay in Mexico City for a while before setting off again, following the U.S. elections.

"Because now it's an anti-immigrant wave," Martinez said. "They're not well-received at the border."

Experts agree that the training of this latest in the United States of America and the United States of America in the United States, where drug gangs frequently kidnap migrants to demand ransom from their families in the US

"The first concern is collective security, there is safety in numbers," said Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope. "There is a political logic to this, but it's not exactly the goal of influencing the U.S. elections."

"It's more important than Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador more than anything else," he said. "This sends a message to the Northern Triangle of Central America."

Honduran lawmaker Bartolo Fuentes, who helped form the caravan of just a few hundred migrants from Honduras on Oct. 13, before growing up at 7,000 at its peak. Fuentes told a news conference at the Mexico City stadium where the migrants are staying that the caravan embarrasses the Honduran government "because now the world is seeing the tragedy we live with."

Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the Republic of China in the House suggests that the country should not be allowed to work.

Benitez said the caravan has got a lot of pressure on Mexico as the United States. After the migrants entered, Central America.

"The caravan shows that Mexico should give these people the way Mexico wants the U.S. to treat migrants."

On Wednesday afternoon, Christopher Gascon, the Mexico City representative for the International Organization for Migration, estimated there were about 6,000 migrants at the sports complex and another 4,000 in caravans that are working their way through southern Mexico.

But some migrants had been visiting the organization's

"They probably did not have a very clear idea of ​​what they faced," Gascon said. He said the first bus leaving Mexico City to take a turn back Wednesday night with 40 to 50 people.

Meanwhile, other migrants were focusing on the daunting task of reaching the U.S. border and presenting claims. The U.S. elections occupied only a small part of their thoughts.

Nora Torres, a 53-year-old Honduran, anxiously asked a reporter: "How did he (Trump) do? Did he do well or poorly?"

Torres had run a small restaurant but closed it because gangs were demanding too much protection money.

For her, Trump's threats to make it tougher, more difficult, and more challenging than ever before, 15,000 U.S troops to the southern border were hard to understand.

"The United States needs Hispanic labor, because it is cheaper," she said. "So why do they discriminate against us?"

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