Activists demonstrate after Joe Biden was declared winner of the US 2020 presidential election during a pro-migrant protest at the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Flag-waving migrants on the Mexican-US border on Saturday welcomed Joe Biden's presidential election win and voiced hope that Donald Trump's defeat would bring greater respect for human rights.

"We're celebrating the victory of Biden and the departure of Donald Trump," said pastor Gustavo Banda, who heads a migrant shelter in Tijuana across the frontier from San Diego in California.

"We're hoping that this new presidency will truly respect human rights," he told AFP.

With Biden in the White House, Banda expressed optimism that "families (who enter the US illegally) will no longer be separated and children will no longer be caged" in US immigration facilities.

"And that the migrants in our city achieve their hopes of a better life when they arrive in the United States," he added.

Trump branded Mexican migrants "rapists" and drug dealers during his 2016 election campaign and vowed to build a wall along the border.

His "zero tolerance" policy launched in 2018 saw thousands of children separated from their parents at the frontier, a tactic apparently meant to frighten the families, before the government backed down.

AFP