Tapachula:

Hundreds of migrants left the Mexican city of Tapachula on foot Wednesday, aiming to arrive at the US border before President-elect Donald Trump — who has vowed massive deportations — takes office in January.

The group of about 1,500 people set out from Tapachula in southern Mexico in the early morning hours for a walk of some 2,600 kilometers (over 1,600 miles).

“My mentality is to get there, I want my (asylum) appointment before he (Trump) takes power,” Colombian Yamel Enriquez told AFP.

“If I don’t get the appointment before, I will give myself over to whatever God wants.”

Venezuelan Zuleika Carreno joined the exodus with the same single-minded purpose.

She said she decided not to postpone her departure “for fear of getting stuck on this side” of the border, which would mean her laborious travels so far would have been “in vain.”

Trump, who won an election in which illegal migration was a top issue, has vowed to declare a national emergency on border security and use the US military to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

Authorities estimate that some 11 million people are living in the United States illegally, and Trump has stoked concerns by claiming an “invasion” is underway by migrants he says will rape and murder Americans.

On Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was preparing a document highlighting the contribution of workers from her country to the US economy.

Migrants who amass in Mexico from a variety of troubled countries with a view to a better life in the United States frequently organize group movements known as “caravans” in a bid to pressure authorities into giving them temporary Mexican visas.

Sticking together also reduces the risk of criminal attacks, but the migrants groups usually disperse along the way.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Mexico City, Mexico:

A bus carrying migrants overturned in southern Mexico on Friday, leaving at least 18 passengers dead and 27 injured, authorities said — the latest fatal road crash involving US-bound migrants.

The dead, three of them minors, were from Venezuela and Haiti, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office in Oaxaca state.

The accident happened at around dawn on a highway linking Oaxaca and the neighboring state of Puebla, it said.

The injured were taken to hospital for treatment, it added.

Images released by state authorities showed the wreckage of the bus lying on its side on a highway winding through hills.

Thousands of migrants from different countries have been traveling across Mexico in buses, overcrowded trailers and atop freight trains in an attempt to reach the US-Mexican border.

More than 8,200 migrants have died or disappeared in the Americas since 2014, most of them while trying to reach the United States via Mexico, according to the International Organization for Migration.

On Sunday, at least 10 Cuban migrants were killed and 25 injured when a cargo truck carrying them overturned in the southern state of Chiapas.

In early August, at least 18 people died and 23 were injured after a bus carrying local passengers and migrants from countries such as India, the Dominican Republic and some African nations plunged into a ravine in the state of Nayarit.

On Thursday, senior US and Mexican officials pledged to redouble their efforts to tackle irregular migration through measures such as modernizing border security, increasing legal avenues and addressing the root causes.

The two countries were committed to expanding “safe, orderly and lawful pathways for migrants” but with “strict consequences” for those who enter the United States illegally, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said after the talks in Mexico City.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)