The caravan hoped for change. But it’s not all up to Biden.

Mexico and Guatemala toughened up border policies under pressure from Donald Trump. But they may have their own reasons to stick with the new status quo. No matter who’s in the White House, migration challenges aren’t going away.

Two Honduran women pleaded with an immigration official last week, after walking into Guatemala with the estimated 8,000-strong migrant caravan that left Honduras earlier this month.

“I’m a single mother,” one of the young women told the Guatemalan official, her voice breaking. “You are eating well. We do not even have bananas because the river swept away all our crops, all our means to work.” She had already traveled more than 250 miles from her home in Yoro, devastated by back-to-back hurricanes last fall, and even before that suffering high unemployment and violent crime.

The official was sympathetic, but repeated Guatemala’s policy of requiring a negative COVID-19 test in order to enter. He would have to send them back across the border.

The women pushed back: Hadn’t he heard the news? The caravan was going to get help along the way. Joe Biden promised that once he was in office the caravan would be welcome in the United States and free to travel through Mexico.

The false rumors underscore common expectations for change as the Biden administration takes control, though migrants’ motivations for fleeing home had little to do with the inauguration. Over the past four years, the U.S. approach to migration has brushed over root causes to emphasize containment, effectively pressuring Mexico and Guatemala to keep migrants and asylum-seekers from continuing north.