The political crisis resulting from last year's controversial presidential elections contributes to today's mass exodus, which includes refugees fleeing post-electoral political persecution.

Rights groups say it's 'inconceivable' US prioritized fortifying border over processing asylum cases expeditiously.

Indigenous leaders and human rights activists in Guatemala worry an ongoing political crisis over the fate of an international anti-corruption commission is sowing the seeds for increased and more generalized repression, and that it could place activists and community leaders around the country further at risk.

Presenting zero evidence, the US government claims there are hundreds of criminals among the migrant exodus, but Central American migrants and refugees in Tijuana are more concerned about potentially armed and dangerous forces north of the border.

Daniel Folgar and Sergio Cáceres met 2,500km ago. The friends, from Guatemala and Honduras respectively, are now in Tijuana, but if they make it into the US, they could be affected by a proposed rule change that would impact immigrants with disabilities.

Tensions soared on Sunday in Tijuana when a small but vocal group of local residents began marching towards the sports complex serving as a shelter for thousands of Central American migrants and refugees, to protest their presence in the city.

It was the day of the 2017 general elections in Honduras when unknown men approached Obedi Miranda and her husband, Allan Escobar, two opposition Libre party activists. "They told us to leave, or else," Miranda said this week, sitting on a couch in a corner of a migrant and refugee shelter just after arriving in Tijuana.

After a month-long journey, Central American migrants and refugees fleeing violence and poverty in large groups are beginning to arrive at the southern border of the United States to seek asylum.

The US donated military jeeps to Guatemalan task forces to combat drug trafficking in border regions, but they have been used elsewhere and for other purposes, such as intimidating an anti-corruption commission, in violation of donation agreements with the US Department of Defense.

Some 5,000 Central Americans rested in a makeshift refugee camp in a Mexico City stadium this week to prepare for next leg of journey to the US border.

Edgar Rodolfo Xon Ajanel called his mother just before he was set to cross the border from Mexico into the United States more than 10 years ago. "He said he was minutes away from crossing," Sofia Sebastiana Xon, one of Edgar's younger sisters, told Al Jazeera. "That was his last call."

A survivor of the 2010 San Fernando massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico, Billy Noe Martinez is making the trek again, hoping to find safety in numbers.

Parents travelling in a US-bound caravan of thousands of Central American migrants and refugees are taking legal action on behalf of their children against US President Donald Trump's border detention plans.

Orvelina Melendez witnessed her husband's murder. Now travelling with thousands of migrants and refugees in a US-bound caravan, she hopes to provide for her family, including her 6-year-old son with a chronic illness.

A Honduran man was killed late on Sunday as the crackdown on migrants and refugees walking from Central America to the United States intensified.

Group departs from El Salvador as others across Central America and Mexico join thousands on US-bound caravan.

Thousands of Honduran migrants and refugees in southern Mexico are continuing their journey north after a two-hour standoff with police.

"We left fleeing through our own lands, arriving through blind spots," says Oscar Omar Nuñez, a street vendor who fled violence and poverty in Honduras with his wife and their children. They are now with thousands making their way up through southern Mexico.

Thousands of migrants and refugees headed to the US find temporary shelter and help as they pass through Guatemala.

Human rights groups warn that government responses to Central American migrants and refugees fleeing to the US may violate international law.