https://www.independent.co.uk/news/colombia-panama-costa-rica-trump-venezuelan-b2816577.html

More than 14,000 mainly Venezuelan migrants who hoped to reach the United States have reversed course and turned south since U.S. President Donald Trump‘s immigration crackdown began, according to a report published Friday by the governments of Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica.

The phenomenon, known as “reverse flow” migration, is largely made up of Venezuelan migrants who fled their country’s long-running economic, social and political crises only to encounter U.S. immigration policy no longer open to asylum-seekers.

Migration through the treacherous Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama peaked in 2023 when more than half a million migrants crossed. That flow slowed somewhat in 2024, but dried up almost completely early this year.

Friday’s report, published with support of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that northward migration had dropped 97% this year.

Migrants traveling south interviewed in Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia by those countries’ ombudsmen offices were almost all Venezuelans (97%) and about half of them said they planned to return to Venezuela, according to the report. Nearly all said they were returning because they could no longer legally reach the U.S.