Mothers carrying their children smile, give me a thumbs up, and then point to a riverbank 50 metres or so away.
We’re on a walkway bridge between the Mexican city of Matamoros and Brownsville in Texas. The riverbank is of course the United States – so close you feel you can almost touch it.
For these families wide-eyed with excitement, this is the moment they’ve dreamt of. Many have endured months, even years, on the road.
Sometimes travelling thousands of miles through hostile countries, outwitting cartel gangs, and managing dizzyingly contradictory bureaucracy, all to get to this point: an asylum interview with United States border officials, and almost certain entry.
On its face, this all sounds like a system working in perfect harmony with the needy being helped by a welcoming country.
But in reality, migration is a hotly disputed issue that is likely to dominate the Trump-Harris debate, and the run-up to the presidential election itself.
You can watch live coverage of the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump from midnight tonight on Sky News, on web and on mobile
The group I am with on the bridge is mostly from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela.
They’re claiming asylum, and with their paperwork and appointment email in hand, they approach the border with some trepidation but mostly with excitement and joy.
Many have waited months for their appointment to come through after applying for asylum on the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app.
This group of a few hundred people on the bridge are now just a few steps from America.
As they shuffle forward, CBP guards check their papers, make sure there are no errors, and wave them through to the other side for their case interviews.
These families, these children, are about to start a new life.
Along the border here in Matamoros, there’s little sign of Donald Trump’s border wall, but he’d doubtless approve of the razor wire fortifications on the American side of the Rio Grande.
Experts here say there’s no doubt who those seeking asylum are backing in this election and this debate – and that’s Kamala Harris, who is seen to have a far less hostile approach to immigration.
“I think the best would be a flexible US immigration policy again, like President Biden’s when he began his administration,” Oscar Misael Hernandez-Hernandez said as we chatted alongside the dozens of cars and trucks crossing the border.
A professor of social anthropology at the El Colegio de la Frontera Norte research centre and an expert on Mexico-US border issues, he added: “Biden broke with ultra-conservative vision and immigration policy.
“So, I think if Harris implements a migration policy like this if she wins the presidency of the United States, it would be not only quite good for migrants in terms of human rights, but also quite good for international diplomacy, because the relations of the United States, at least with President Trump, if he wins, would be quite disastrous as they were in the past.”
In shelters and hostels across Mexico, many other migrant families simply have to wait for their border appointments.
It’s like a lottery, and it can take a long time for their number to come up.
Few leave the shelter; they would be easy prey for cartel gangs who would kidnap and hold them for ransom.
Marlen Cabrera, 39, from Honduras, and her family are waiting it out along with 200 others at the Casa del Migrante San Francisco de Asis shelter.
Any tightening of the immigration rules – as threatened by Donald Trump – would be a disaster for her.
I asked her what she would do if the laws changed with a Trump victory. She says she doesn’t like to think about what-ifs.
“I’ve been here so long, and not being able to get in would be hard because it’s the only option I have,” she said.
“I have to get in. It would be really terrible if we couldn’t. And I don’t just speak for myself, I speak for everyone here.”
Jose Valdivia, the Nicaraguan manager of the shelter, is even clearer.
“Everybody, since the last election, we all wanted the Democrats to win, right? Because the Democrats look out for the little guy,” he told me.
“That’s what everybody here as a migrant wants, we want the Democrats to win. No one wants Trump.”
Day in, day out, in any weather, the migrants line up for their appointment here at the border in Matamoros.
Along the almost 2,000-mile-long border separating Mexico and the United States, thousands of applicants are screened every day and allowed to enter America legally to start new lives in their new home country.
But these migrants are at the centre of one of the most divisive issues in America right now.
Since the summer, border restrictions introduced by the Biden administration, combined with assistance from Mexican authorities who hamper the movement of migrants to the border, has brought about a large reduction in the number of people illegally entering America.
Despite this, President Biden is widely considered to have failed on immigration, and while Kamala Harris’s team have been working hard to cast her as a sort of new candidate and a breath of fresh air, she is – whether they like it or not – part of this administration and is tainted by its perceived failures.
The latest polls suggest Donald Trump scores well on the immigration issue, and his team have been releasing pointed “attack ads” on Kamala Harris and her team on this subject. They in turn have released adverts attacking Trump.
In the debate itself, Trump is widely expected to try to nail Harris on immigration, and she will have to find a way to counter that.
Undoubtedly, she will point out that Trump’s supporters kiboshed a cross-party action plan for migration, but she is still tainted for certain.
While this will all play out in the political rough and tumble of the electoral process, it is important not to forget that thousands upon thousands of people will be affected by America’s future stance on immigration.
And for some asylum seekers, it is quite literally a matter of life and death.
With seven weeks to go until the US goes to the polls, Sky’s dedicated team of correspondents goes on the road to gauge what citizens in key swing states make of the choice for president.
This week they focus on the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Mark Stone travels to Florida where the foiled attack took place, while James Matthews has been finding out more about the suspected would-be assassin in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina.
Plus, Martha Kelner attended a Trump town hall in Flint, Michigan, to hear him speak for the first time after the attempt on his life, and asked voters if it will impact the way they vote in November.
A previous Titan submersible dive to the Titanic was aborted due to an apparent mechanical failure, one of the mission’s passengers has said.
Fred Hagen had paid a fee to go on a dive in the Titan in 2021, two years before it imploded and killed all five passengers onboard.
He told a US Coast Guard panel investigating the tragedy on Friday that his trip was aborted underwater when the Titan began malfunctioning and it was clear they weren’t going to reach the Titanic wreck site.
“We realised that all it could do was spin around in circles, making right turns,” Mr Hagen said. “At this juncture, we obviously weren’t going to be able to navigate to the Titanic.”
He said the Titan resurfaced and the mission was scrapped.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
A Republican backed by Donald Trump in his bid to be North Carolina’s governor denied reports he called himself a “black nazi” on an online message board.
CNN reported Thursday that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted racial and sexual comments on a pornography website more than a decade ago.
In a video posted on social media, the Republican nominee said he would not leave the race over “salacious tabloid lies”.
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it. And we know that with your help, we will.”
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
Mr Robinson also referenced the CNN report and said: “Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story – those are not the words of Mark Robinson.
“You know my words. You know my character.”
More on North Carolina
Related Topics:
The US outlet reported Mr Robson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14.
He was also said to have used a racial slur when discussing civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, referred to himself as a “black nazi,” and said: “I’d take Hitler over any of the shit that’s in Washington right now.”
Advertisement
CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
Sky News has not verified whether the account is linked to Mr Robinson.
Eight minutes after the report was published on Thursday, vice president Kamala Harris’ campaign started sharing videos of Donald Trump praising Mr Robinson.
One video from the campaign on X shows the former president at a March rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he called the lieutenant governor “Martin Luther King times two”.
“I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,” Mr Trump said.
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
Scott Lassiter, a GOP Senate candidate in a swing district in the state, called on Mr Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race”.
Mr Trump’s campaign also appeared to be distancing itself from Mr Robinson.
The ex-president did not refer to the controversy when he addressed Jewish donors on Thursday night, instead vowing to be ‘the best friend Jewish Americans ever had”.