Donald Trump's campaign pledge to build a 10-foot-high wall at the border of Mexico is reportedly increasing the number of immigrants from Central and South America frantic to get into the United States for a better life.
"In the short term it appears his rhetoric may be encouraging — not dissuading — migrants to head north to escape poverty and violence,"
London's Guardian newspaper reports after interviewing families attempting to cross the border.
"We heard he wants to build those walls. That's why we came. A lot of people are talking about it in El Salvador. They say really bad things about [Trump]," Catalina Maldonado, 34, told the newspaper as she and her son waited at a shelter in Texas.
Trump says he'll force Mexico to pay for the wall by threatening to cut off billions of dollars Mexican immigrants send home,
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
A memo sent to the paper by the GOP presidential front-runner gives details of his key campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the 1,000-mile barrier.