Migrant Caravan Heads North on Midterm Hopes

A caravan of roughly 1,500 people left southern Mexico this week, many of them convinced that the Democratic takeover of Congress will reopen the U.S. border. The law points the other way: border policy still runs through the White House.

A migrant caravan of about 1,500 people, most of them Central American families, set out Tuesday from Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, and was still walking north on Wednesday, Reuters reported, citing a Chiapas state government source. Many participants told reporters they were encouraged by Democrats’ victory in last week’s midterm elections, which hands the party both chambers of Congress in January. That hope misreads where border power sits.

The group, which calls itself “Dios con Nosotros” (God With Us), is aiming first for Mexico City, more than 1,000 kilometers away, a trek Reuters said is likely to take at least several weeks. A Nicaraguan man deported from the United States a few months ago told Reuters there “might be a light at the end of the tunnel, a way for us to get in.” Newsweek quoted a 73-year-old migrant telling Noticias Telemundo that “since Congress has changed, the border has to be open.”

Why a new Congress does not open the border to a migrant caravan

The rules a caravan would meet at the border are almost entirely executive. Asylum screening, expedited removal, detention and port-of-entry processing are run by the Department of Homeland Security, and this administration has used presidential authority to tighten each. The CBP One app that once let asylum seekers book appointments at ports of entry was shut down for that purpose on Jan. 20, 2025, and a presidential proclamation signed the same day invoked section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to suspend entry across the southern border, a measure whose asylum limits have been challenged in federal court. None of that changes when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

Congress’s real levers are money, oversight and legislation, and each is slow or blocked. Reuters reported that Democratic staffers expect President Trump to veto any bill that curbs enforcement or widens legal pathways, and overriding a veto takes two-thirds of both chambers. Trump told reporters Monday that “my policy has not changed,” according to Reuters, and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote online the day after the election that “deportations will continue,” the Associated Press reported, even as Democrats prepare subpoenas. Even the most active Democratic push, the effort to force a vote on the Dream and Promise Act, concerns people who have lived in the United States for years, not new arrivals.

The border numbers the caravan is walking toward

Border Patrol recorded 98,708 apprehensions at the southwest border in fiscal 2026, which ended Sept. 30, according to CBP data cited by Newsweek, compared with more than 1.8 million a year under President Joe Biden. DHS has also said agents have released no one into the country for 17 consecutive months, Newsweek reported. Based on the CBP figure, that works out to about 270 southwest border apprehensions a day over the year, so a single group of 1,500 would equal more than five days of last year’s arrests along the entire southwest border.

The administration has also tried to meet caravans before they arrive. On Oct. 29 the State Department said it had restricted visas for more than 15 people it accused of organizing recent caravans and warned that participants could have visas refused or revoked, a step examined here when it was announced.

The first test is in Mexico. Earlier caravans have often lost much of their strength in southern Mexico as walkers tire, disperse or are stopped, and the route north runs through territory where migrants report kidnapping and extortion. One Honduran participant, a survivor of the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, appealed to President Claudia Sheinbaum to let the group pass, Reuters reported. None of the reports reviewed included a response from Mexico’s federal government.

At the border, the likely outcome is detention, not release. For anyone who does reach the United States under current policy, the practical result is likely to be custody and fast-track removal processing. What the election may change is the politics. Reuters/Ipsos polling shows approval of Trump’s handling of immigration at 38 percent, down from 50 percent at the start of his term, according to Reuters, and incoming House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson has promised investigations of DHS. A caravan arriving in the middle of that fight would hand both sides a ready argument: the administration’s case that deterrence is working and must not be loosened, and its critics’ case that enforcement has gone too far.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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