HUNDREDS of migrants from a dozen countries left from Mexico’s southern border on foot on Sunday, as they attempted to make it to the United States border.

Some of the members of the group said that they hoped to make it to the US border before elections are held in November, because they fear that if Donald Trump wins, he will follow through on a promise to close the border to asylum-seekers.

“We are running the risk that permits [to cross the border] might be blocked,” said Miguel Salazar, a migrant from El Salvador. 

He feared that a new Trump administration might stop granting appointments to migrants through CBP One, an app used by asylum-seekers to enter the US legally, by getting appointments at US border posts, where they make their cases to officials.

The app only works once migrants reach Mexico City, or states in northern Mexico.

“Everyone wants to use that route,” said Mr Salazar.

The group left on Sunday from the southern Mexican town of Ciudad Hidalgo, which is next to a river that marks Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

Some said they had been waiting in Ciudad Hidalgo for weeks for permits to travel to towns further to the north.

Migrants trying to pass through Mexico in recent years have organised large groups to try to reduce the risk of being attacked by gangs or stopped by Mexican immigration officials as they travel. 

But the caravans tend to break up in southern Mexico, as people get tired of walking for hundreds of miles.

Migrant Oswaldo Reyna criticised Mr Trump’s recent comments about migrants and how they are trying to “invade” the United States.

“We are not delinquents,” he said. “We are hard-working people who have left our country to get ahead in life, because in our homeland we are suffering from many needs.”