Hundreds of migrants, mostly Hondurans, left Metapa de Domínguez and walked into Tapachula as a caravan after the U.S. midterms. They told Reuters they expect President Trump’s immigration policies to weaken. Mexican reporting puts the wider group above 1,000 and names it the third Honduran caravan in two months.
On November 9, 2026, Reuters posted video of a caravan leaving the Mexican border town of Metapa de Domínguez and walking to Tapachula in Chiapas state. “Hundreds of migrants, mostly Hondurans,” the agency said. Migrants told Reuters “they foresaw a weakening of President Trump’s anti-migrant policies after the midterm elections.” The accompanying video carried the headline “Central American migrants cheer Trump’s midterm losses.”
That expectation is the story. After years of tightened enforcement under Trump, a fresh caravan is moving north on the bet that Democratic midterm gains, and the president’s own post-election comments, will loosen the rules that blocked earlier groups.
What Mexican reporting adds
El Universal, writing from Chiapas on November 8, described the contingent as “Dios con Nosotros” (“God With Us”) and said it numbered more than 1,000 people when it reached Tapachula on Sunday. The paper reported that the group entered Mexico on Friday night through the municipality of Suchiate, walked roughly 35 kilometers over two days, and rested in Frontera Hidalgo and Metapa de Domínguez before gathering at Parque Bicentenario in Tapachula.
El Universal said the migrants planned to rest about 48 hours there, then continue north along the Pacific route through southeastern, central and northern Mexico toward the United States. Members cited a lack of work and economic pressure in Honduras, and said they believed a Democratic midterm victory could change U.S. policy toward Central and South American migrants.
The Associated Press, in Spanish-language reporting from Tapachula dated November 6, likewise described several hundred Honduran migrants entering Mexico that Friday with the stated aim of reaching the United States, and called the group the third such caravan in less than two months. Reuters’ “hundreds” and El Universal’s “more than a thousand” may reflect different counts, different moments in the march, or different slices of the same movement; RSN has not independently counted the column.
The third caravan in two months
According to El Universal, the first Honduran caravan of this cycle, from San Pedro Sula, reached Mexico’s southern border in September. A second followed in October. Both walked for about three weeks along roughly 250 kilometers of the Chiapas coast before Mexican immigration authorities dismantled them near Arriaga, close to the Oaxaca border. Officials then issued transit permits, or salvaconductos, that allowed many migrants to continue toward Mexico City, Monterrey, Tamaulipas and other cities.
El Universal noted that organized Central American caravans had largely been absent since mid-2024, when the United States last held a national election. Their return lines up with the 2026 midterms. RSN previously covered the pull of U.S. policy signals on Central American migration in 2014 reporting on push and pull factors, and Mexico’s pressure on its own southern border in a 2016 account of troop deployments.
What Trump said after the midterms
The migrants’ bet is not coming from nowhere. In a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, President Trump said his deportation policy “might have been too tough” for voters and that it hurt Republicans in the midterms. He said he would “love to do something on immigration” with congressional Democrats, while still giving himself high marks for “closing up the border” and removing “the bad ones.”
AP and other outlets reported that Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate. At the same time, Trump elevated Stephen Miller, a principal architect of the administration’s deportation strategy, to White House chief of staff. NPR reported that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted after the election, “Deportations will continue,” and that Congress had already funded ICE and CBP at a level that can sustain large-scale enforcement through the rest of the term.
Analysis: a policy signal is not a policy change
This section is RSN’s analysis. Caravans form when people believe the odds at the U.S. border have shifted. The Metapa-to-Tapachula march shows that belief spreading again: Democratic congressional gains plus the president’s own “too tough” framing are being read, on the ground, as an opening. That does not mean the law has changed. Congress still funded aggressive enforcement. The new chief of staff built that apparatus. And Mexico’s National Migration Institute has already broken up the last two caravans on this route.
What matters next is whether Mexico again issues transit papers that move people north, whether U.S. officers at the southwest border treat arrivals as a surge or a managed flow, and whether any Trump-Democrat immigration deal, if one appears, is framed as relief for long-settled workers or as a broader softening that further groups will try to exploit. Until those answers arrive, the caravan is acting on a political forecast, not on a statute.
What to watch
- Whether “Dios con Nosotros” leaves Tapachula on the Pacific route, and whether Mexican authorities again dismantle it before Arriaga.
- How many transit permits Mexico issues, and where those permit holders next appear.
- Any White House or DHS statement clarifying whether post-midterm talk of a softer approach applies to new illegal crossings.
- CBP encounter numbers on the southwest border over the next two to four weeks.
What is established, disputed and not established
Established:
- Reuters reported that hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants left Metapa de Domínguez for Tapachula and said they expected Trump’s anti-migrant policies to weaken after the midterms.
- El Universal reported a Honduran caravan of more than 1,000, called “Dios con Nosotros,” arriving in Tapachula after entering via Suchiate and resting in Metapa.
- President Trump told “60 Minutes” his deportation policy may have been “too tough” and hurt Republicans in the midterms.
Disputed / unresolved:
- Exact headcount: Reuters’ “hundreds” versus El Universal’s “more than a thousand.”
- Whether any concrete U.S. policy change will follow the president’s comments.
Not established:
- RSN has not independently verified the caravan’s size, leadership or ultimate destination beyond the cited reporting.
- No public DHS or White House response to this specific caravan was located at the time of writing.
Sources: Reuters on X, Nov. 9, 2026; El Universal, Nov. 8, 2026; Associated Press (Spanish), Nov. 6, 2026; CBS News, “60 Minutes” takeaways; AP on Trump “60 Minutes” immigration comments; NPR, Nov. 9, 2026.
Featured image: migrants walking in single file across arid border terrain (RSN media library ID 37957). Shared media alt left unchanged. Reuters video/frames not used.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
