Mexico protesters burn Trump effigy, slam U.S. border policy

By Jorge Nieto

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Protesters in Mexico burned effigies of Donald Trump and a border patrol agent on the U.S. border on Saturday, condemning President Donald Trump's migration policies and urging Americans to reject him at the ballot box on Tuesday.

A few dozen migrant activists marched to the beach fence separating Mexico from the United States at the border city of Tijuana chanting, "Trump, we won't pay for your wall," then set fire to a crude, besuited effigy of the president on a stick.

"We're calling on people to vote against Trump and in favor of hope. Biden has promised us a humanitarian migration reform, we'll be watching to ensure the promises are kept this time," said Hugo Castro, a Mexican-American migrant activist.

Trump, a Republican, is battling Democratic opponent Joe Biden, seeking re-election as president four years after he won office pledging to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, which he has accused of sending rapists and murderers north.

Insisting Mexico will pay for the border wall he is building between the two countries, Trump has pushed and threatened President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador into tightening up Mexico's borders against migrants from Central America.

Alongside the Trump effigy, the demonstrators torched a pinata of a border patrol agent, a week after a Mexican man was killed in an altercation with U.S. officials attempting to cross into the United States on the Tijuana-San Diego border.

(Reporting by Jorge Nieto; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by William Mallard)