Migrants Mass at U.S.-Mexico Border, Pinning Hopes on Biden

Members of a group of migrants living in a new border encampment here have a message for the new U.S. president printed on their T-shirts: “Biden please let us in!”

Despite statements from the new administration that it won’t let in large numbers of migrants anytime soon, hundreds of people have set up tents in a plaza just across from the U.S. border. They say they believe President Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump administration immigration policies, will soon welcome them.

“I’m paying rent [in Tijuana], but we have to be here in case they call my number,” said Francisca Aguilar Garcia, pointing to a pile of blankets on a sidewalk where she and her family have slept for the past few weeks. A Honduran native, Ms. Aguilar is hoping to enter the U.S. and claim asylum along with her husband, two sons and nephew.

Like some migrants in the new encampment, she has been waiting a long time—more than two years in her case. She still has a slip of paper with a number that she was given when she first arrived, before the pandemic led to a closure in border traffic and ended a metered system implemented by the Trump administration. The number marked her spot on a list of migrants who wanted to cross the border and ask for asylum.

Ms. Aguilar said the family fled Honduras when her sons and nephew became targets of local gangs after her father and brother were killed.

Other migrants have traveled north more recently, part of a surge that began late last spring and has sped up in recent months. The newer arrivals say they are largely motivated by hopes that a new Democratic administration would be more friendly to asylum seekers.

Berta Lidia Caballero Fernandez, 28, said she and her family left Honduras about three months ago in search of asylum in the U.S. She and her husband and four children have been living in the Tijuana plaza since mid-February, having heard that the Biden administration was going to let people cross the border soon. She said for now, the plan is to stay in the plaza and wait for their chance to cross legally.