Report

The start of United States (US) president Donald Trump’s second term in January 2025 has not only utterly transformed asylum and immigration policy within the country, it has also reverberated across the entire Americas. Besides reducing crossings at the southern border with Mexico to the lowest levels on record and suspending most existing protection pathways – including the CBP One app, Safe Mobility Offices and humanitarian parole for countries such as Haiti – hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people already living in the US have seen their legal right to remain in the country rescinded. This stripping of humanitarian protection has been accompanied by an extensive programme of highly militarised raids, detentions and deportations that have been widely criticised for their violations of human rights. Beyond the US, the upheaval of its asylum and immigration policy has left numerous asylum seekers stranded in Mexico or en route in Central America and driven significant reverse migration back towards South America. (for more see Thematic snapshot US migration policies: regional impact on mixed migration in Latin America)

The implications of this large-scale, unmanaged north-south movement for both migrants and their intended destination countries, such as Colombia, are considerable and exacerbated by the limited framework for protection and assistance currently in place. At a time when the “spirit of collaboration, solidarity, and shared responsibility” envisioned in the 2022 Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection is urgently needed, these qualities appear to be in short supply. With many countries stepping back their support to displaced Venezuelans and other migrants, Argentina under far-right President Javier Milei has gone even further, rolling back many established rights for migrants and asylum seekers. This demonstrates how, despite Latin America and the Caribbean’s longstanding commitment to free movement and humanitarian assistance, the potential for Trump’s migration policies to be exported to other countries in the region remains.

With close to 7.9 million Venezuelans still living outside the country, the vast majority within the Americas, the situation continues to be the largest displacement crisis in the entire region and one of the largest worldwide. According to data from the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), as of May 2025 there were 6.87 million Venezuelans living in Latin America and the Caribbean alone. While the most sizeable populations are in Colombia (2.81 million), Peru (1.66 million), Brazil (680,100), Chile (669,400) and Ecuador (440,500), there are significant Venezuelan communities distributed across most of the region, from Mexico to Argentina. While large numbers are now crossing back into Venezuela, in some cases driven to leave their host countries as conditions become more difficult, more Venezuelans are projected to leave in the near future: according to one survey, around 5 percent of the population in Venezuela (almost 1 million people in total) have plans to leave within the next six months. For migrants and returnees alike, the journey to the border between Venezuela and Colombia is fraught with risk, exacerbated by the recent rollback of humanitarian assistance.

Graphic 1. Major locations of Venezuelans in Latin America as of May 2025

More than a decade since it began, the widespread solidarity that characterised the initial response of neighbouring countries to those displaced has also given way to increasing restrictions. Many Venezuelans now struggle with deepening poverty, legal uncertainty, limited access to services and social discrimination. In Colombia, while around 2 million Venezuelans in the country already benefit from temporary protection, the expiry of the registration deadline of the Temporary Protection Statute in November 2023 has left Venezuelans who arrived afterwards with no accessible pathways to regularise their status. The main option for more recent arrivals, since December 2024, has been to apply for a special visitor’s visa, an onerous process that reportedly has had a success rate of just over one in every 10 applications. Those whose applications are rejected or who lack the resources to apply in the first place are being pushed into irregularity as a result.

In Chile, the previously open policy towards Venezuelan migrants has hardened amidst a struggling economy, strained public services and rising crime – phenomena that many Chileans attribute to mass immigration, despite evidence suggesting that crime levels are still lower among immigrants than the general population. In the north – where, since 2023, the Chilean government has repeatedly extended the ‘temporary’ militarisation of areas near the border – authorities announced, in March, the closure of two reception centres for migrants and will instead “re-route” arrivals back into Bolivia. Peru has also recently introduced a raft of immigration requirements, with significant implications for undocumented Venezuelans. Legislation announced in October 2024 will require immigrants to have an employment contract and rental agreement in place to remain in the country. Activists have expressed concerns that, given the barriers some face in formalising their work and accommodation, the provisions could prove discriminatory.

One of the most significant barriers for many Venezuelan migrants is a lack of legal documentation, a situation that can compound their vulnerability and constrain access to basic services, housing and formal employment. Positively, many host countries in the region have launched repeated regularisation drives to address this, including Brazil and Uruguay. However, in March, Ecuador revoked a regularisation programme launched the previous year, citing insufficient assistance from IOM and UNHCR as a reason. While the almost 5,000 visas already issued by the programme remain valid, the fate of 3,000 others under consideration was not clear. The decision also paved the way for the annulment, in August 2025, of the 2010 Migratory Statute between Ecuador and Venezuela – a bilateral document that established a principle of free movement between the two countries. Though, in practice, the provisions of the agreement had already been suspended back in 2019, when Venezuelans were again required to have visas to enter Ecuador – a development that Chile and Peru also introduced in the same year – some fear it could further weaken the status of migrants in the country.

Nevertheless, the shift in policy has been most pronounced in Argentina, where the right-wing government has imposed wide-ranging restrictions on asylum and immigration. An emergency decree on asylum, passed in October 2024, reduces the ability of claimants to appeal negative decisions and expands the existing criteria for exclusion of refugee status, meaning that applicants accused of political crimes could be ineligible for support. Subsequently, an executive order in May 2025 drastically reduced access to permanent residency, citizenship and basic services for migrants in the country, while expanding the provisions for deportations. Venezuelans, while not specifically targeted in the legislation, make up most of the country’s registered refugees and a significant share of its migrant population.

Poverty, insecurity and environmental disasters remain potent drivers of displacement within the Caribbean. In Cuba for instance, against a backdrop of economic and demographic decline, the national population shrank to less than 10 million in 2024, compared to 11.2 million in 2012 – a decline of 13 percent – with the majority heading to the US. While there are deep-rooted structural and societal factors that continue to push Cubans to migrate, government officials have also warned that the imposition of fresh sanctions by the US government could trigger more migration. With the cancellation of the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) programme and the imposition of partial restrictions on travel from Cuba generally, many recent Cuban migrants will end up having to choose alternative destinations in the Americas, including Brazil, Mexico and Suriname.

The situation is even more acute in Haiti, with the country reportedly approaching what the UN warned was a “point of no return”, as a surge in gang violence and the steady deterioration of public security threatened to descend into “complete chaos”. During the course of 2024, the number of IDPs tripled to over 1 million, with the country accounting for around three-quarters of all crime-related displacement worldwide that year. In the capital Port-au-Prince, where an estimated 85 percent of the city is under the control of gangs, many residents have had to settle in displacement sites to escape the fighting. However, with little in the way of basic services, adequate shelter or protection, IDPs are at heightened risk of cholera outbreaks and sexual violence.

The crisis has only deepened during 2025, with the violence – at least 2,680 people were killed in the first five months of 2025 alone, with another 957 injured and 316 abducted – spreading to previously unaffected areas. By June 2025, almost 1.3 million people were displaced, an increase of 24 percent from six months before. Many have been forced from the city in an “urban exodus”, with the majority (77%) of the country’s IPDs now situated in the provinces. Notwithstanding the growth of displacement sites, particularly in the capital, more than four in five IDPs (83%) are being hosted outside them – for instance, with local families – placing further pressure on impoverished rural communities. Despite the severity of the situation, humanitarian support remains grossly underfunded, with OCHA having received just 8 percent of the USD 908 million requested for the year as of the end of June.

The dynamics of displacement in Haiti are distinct from many other superficially similar crises, such as civil conflicts, because of the dominant role of criminal organisations in the violence. Displacement, rather than being a side effect of the violence, is a primary instrument of the various armed groups and factions vying for control in the capital. The forced movement of communities from certain areas, as well as the managed return of residents once they are firmly under their control, is central to how these gangs terrorise, coerce and extort the civilian population. This ‘weaponisation of displacement’ is accompanied by systematic abuses including child recruitment, kidnapping and gender-based violence.

Even before the current crisis, extreme poverty and chronic insecurity were major drivers of emigration from Haiti itself, with around 16 percent of the national population (1.7 million people) estimated to be living outside the country as of 2020. Despite the inhospitable environment in the wider region, described below, many continue to attempt to escape the violence by trying to leave by boat, with more than 600 Haitians intercepted on vessels by the US Coast Guard between 1 October 2024 and 2 September 2025 and returned to Haiti.

The deepening crisis in Haiti has been exacerbated by the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Haitians from elsewhere in the region, in particular, the neighbouring Dominican Republic. While the Dominican Republic hosts a sizeable Haitian population, including both migrants and a large but marginalised Dominico-Haitian minority, this community has been exposed to discrimination, abuse, exploitation and the threat of deportation for decades. Notwithstanding conditions across the border, Dominican authorities have escalated efforts to summarily expel thousands of Haitians, including unaccompanied minors and people born in the country who had their citizenship revoked following the passage of discriminatory legislation in 2013. In the first eight months of 2025, more than 175,000 Haitians were deported from the country, bringing the total since 2021 to over 593,600 deportations. Though some Dominican business leaders have called for the regularisation of Haitian workers, given the vital role they play in key sectors such as construction, the government has intensified its restrictions in employment, housing and other areas, heightening fears within migrant communities.

While these crackdowns are part of a long-standing policy of exclusion, they nevertheless entered a new phase in October 2024, when the Dominican government announced a quota of 10,000 Haitians deported every week. In April 2025, this programme was expanded to specifically target hospitals and maternity wards, sweeping up hundreds of pregnant or lactating women in the process. As a result, many women in need of maternal health care have reportedly chosen to give birth at home out of fear of deportation, with sometimes fatal consequences. Those deported, meanwhile, are acutely vulnerable given the parlous state of health services in Haiti and shrinking access to essential services in the wake of funding cuts, in particular the rollback of assistance from USAID since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Though IOM is attempting to scale up its support to border towns, where tens of thousands of deportees are arriving in a state of acute vulnerability, this is especially difficult given the deteriorating humanitarian and security context across the country. Many of those deported have not lived in Haiti for decades or, having been born in the Dominican Republic, never even visited the country.

While the situation in the Dominican Republic is especially egregious, deportations have also been carried out elsewhere, including from Jamaica. Among other incidents, in May 2025 more than 40 Haitians were sent back after being denied an asylum hearing in a move that was condemned by human rights activists as a violation of international law. Other Caribbean countries, such as the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, have also forcibly repatriated Haitians despite the dangers in their home country. Across the Caribbean as a whole, the response to the situation in Haiti appears to be primarily informed by concerns around irregular migration, rather than protection: despite a widespread momentum towards free movement in the region generally, most countries within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have specific visa restrictions in place for Haitian nationals. At present, Haiti is also excluded from the planned CARICOM agreement to establish freedom of movement between member states.

The US, for its part, has not only repatriated Haitians intercepted at sea but has also undertaken a large-scale deportation of long-term Haitian residents in July, as part of its crackdown on migrants, many of whom were apprehended during official immigration processes. The move is especially concerning given that the Trump administration revoked the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of an estimated 500,000 Haitians in February 2025, a move that came into effect in August. Haitian TPS holders have been encouraged to return to Haiti, despite the life-threatening conditions in the country, though a legal ruling has prevented the government from implementing the termination before February 2026.

For many years, an increasingly large and diverse migrant population – encompassing not only nationals from Latin America and the Caribbean, but also Africa, Asia and the Middle East – has moved northwards through Colombia, either by land through the notorious Darién Gap, or by boat to Panama and Nicaragua, before moving onwards through Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico and its northern border with the US. However, since the imposition of highly restrictive asylum and immigration policies by the US government in January 2025, discussed further in this section, this trend has been dramatically reversed. The majority of migrants are now effectively stuck en route or heading back to South America, either to their countries of origin or other countries in the region where they have previously resided. This poses new protection risks for migrants who in many cases are now forced to experience the dangers of the journey again, including kidnapping, extortion and robbery, as they transit back through Mexico, Central America and Colombia (see also Thematic snapshot: ICE wars).

With the US-Mexico border now almost impossible to traverse, many migrants appear to have suspended their plans to move on. While significant numbers are deciding to return south, however, a recent survey by IOM found that almost three-quarters (72%) were planning to stay indefinitely in Mexico. Though asylum applications in Mexico have already risen to record levels in recent years, informal reports suggest that the number of claims has more than tripled to around 1,000 a day since January 2025. Despite the difficulties of remaining there, many thousands of migrants are choosing Mexico or previously popular host countries such as Ecuador over their countries of origin, given the continued dangers there. Some also lack the funds and documentation to return home – a particular challenge for Nicaraguan nationals, with many reportedly denied re-entry by authorities and even stripped of their citizenship – or may be planning to resume their journey to the US in future should conditions change (see also Interview with Luciana Gandini).

Nevertheless, those seeking to stay face significant barriers to accessing employment, education and other long-term needs, not least because of the extended waiting periods associated with Mexico’s overloaded asylum system. Many are now living precariously in displacement sites and informal settlements close to the northern and southern borders or in Mexico City, with little or no access to services and at constant risk of sexual violence, kidnapping and infectious disease. Their vulnerability has been exacerbated by the rollback of humanitarian assistance – another central policy of the Trump administration – as well as regular reports of mistreatment by police.

The dangers of the Darién Gap, an area of mountainous jungle dominated by armed groups, have become notorious in recent years as increasing numbers of migrants have travelled through the region on their way to Panama. Besides the threat of criminal violence, other factors such as wild animals, sickness and flooding all contribute to the high number of fatalities associated with the route. In 2024, according to IOM, a record 174 deaths and disappearances were documented in the Darién, more than any other year since 2015, when data collection began.

During 2025, however, the death toll has plummeted to eight deaths between January and the end of July. This reflects a sharp reduction in movement northwards, largely in response to increased restrictions. Having peaked in 2023, when 520,085 crossings into Panama were detected, numbers were already substantially lower in 2024 (at 302,203), in part as a result of tighter entry restrictions imposed by Panamanian authorities and an uptick in deportations from the US. All the same, the figures for 2025 show a far more precipitous fall: just 2,934 detected crossings in the first seven months, with the majority (2,229) occurring in January, before the new US administration’s policies came into effect. As the year progressed, movement along the route has continued to dwindle, with just seven detected crossings into Panama in July.

Graphic 2. Crossings through Panama’s Darien Gap in (July 2023 – July 2025)

Reverse movements (north to south) through Darien Gap, November 2024 – June 2025

By April, Panama’s president José Raul Mulino was declaring that “for all practical purposes, the Darién is closed”, summing up the situation as “mission complete”. Nevertheless, by the middle of June, he was expressing concerns about the scale of reverse migration now taking place, which saw a rise to more than 14,000 migrants having moved southwards by August. While Panama itself has been detaining and deporting migrants, prompting criticism from human rights groups, it has also been receiving hundreds of deported migrants from the US – many from countries to which they cannot be easily returned to directly, such as Afghanistan, China and Iran – in what critics argue is illegal refoulement. Having forcibly detained these migrants for weeks, the government was pressurised by local rights groups in March to release them, with an order to leave the country within 30 days. Months later, however, some were still stranded in the country, uncertain whether to apply for asylum in Panama or wait in the hope of resettlement in a third country.

Many migrants have also been heading south from Central America, a largely novel phenomenon: Panamanian authorities initially responded by sending back some arrivals into Costa Rica before the two countries reached an agreement in February to facilitate onward movement. From Panama, many of those heading on to Colombia are opting to travel by boat to avoid the Darién Gap, though these maritime routes carry other risks, including capsizing accidents. While the scale of returns is not comparable to the volume of movement northwards in previous years, it has, nevertheless, put significant pressure on smaller border or coastal towns with limited resources to respond to new arrivals, including many vulnerable children and others with complex mental health needs.

While there were marked differences between current US president Donald Trump and his predecessor, President Joe Biden, in how they framed immigration – for instance, with some exceptions, Biden generally shied away from the inflammatory, xenophobic rhetoric that characterised much of Trump’s 2024 election campaign – many were disappointed that Biden replicated important elements of Trump’s first-term anti-immigrant agenda during his own presidency. Despite some continuity in areas such as deportations and restrictions on asylum, however, the second Trump presidency represents a dramatic escalation. Alongside the almost total closure of the southern border to asylum seekers, regardless of their claims, the new administration has launched a highly militarised deportation drive within the US – a move that has been condemned as “unprecedented and deeply dangerous”.

By far, the most radical element of Trump’s second-term agenda is the dismantling of vast swathes of the country’s asylum and immigration law. The scale and intensity of this push is illustrated by the fact that no fewer than 181 immigration-related actions were carried out in the first 100 days of his administration – an extraordinary barrage of legislation that has touched virtually every aspect of asylum, citizenship and immigration law. This process was launched on Trump’s very first day in office with an executive order “protecting” the country against “invasion” and has since included, among other measures, the weaponisation of archaic laws, such as the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, to expedite removals. For instance, a rarely used section of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorising that any “alien whose presence or activities” could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” is “deportable” has been leveraged for the attempted expulsion of foreign nationals in the country who have expressed pro-Palestinian views. Many of these measures skirt the outer perimeter of constitutional law and have been contested by a multitude of challenges in the courts.

Just as “building the wall” was a key electoral promise in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Trump’s new immigration policy includes elements of physical deterrence. Despite the financial, human and environmental costs associated with previous phases of the wall’s construction, the administration intends to build a new section and has mooted plans to paint the entirety of it black to make it hotter and harder to climb. US troop numbers at the border have been tripled, and large areas on the US side have been classified as militarised zones, enabling the government to deploy soldiers with the authority to apprehend any migrants who enter this territory on charges of trespassing. This has effectively served as a loophole to circumvent well-established restrictions on military participation in immigration enforcement. Alongside this intensified securitisation, the administration has suspended the right to asylum at the border and re-introduced legislation requiring asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their claims are under consideration.

On one level, these measures seem to be working. Since Trump came to power, encounters at the southern border with Mexico have fallen to the lowest levels in decades, with just 4,601 encounters in July 2025 – a fraction of the monthly total in July 2024 (104,100) or July 2023 (183,479). These figures prompted celebration from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, who proclaimed that “President Trump didn’t manage the crisis – he obliterated it”. For many, the figures appear to corroborate the effectiveness of his deterrence-based strategy, even if it comes at an extraordinary human cost.

Graphic 3. Southwest land border encounters (July 2023 – July 2025)

Nevertheless, attempted entries at the southern border had already reduced significantly in the final year of the Biden administration. This decrease had been credited to a ‘carrot and stick’ approach that balanced, on the one hand, more restrictive asylum policies and an agreement with Mexico to intercept northbound migrants in its territory with, on the other, the expansion of safe and legal alternative pathways (such as the CBP One app, the CNHV programme and the Safe Mobility Offices). This has two implications. Firstly, while Trump’s policies have undoubtedly had an enormous impact, they represent to some extent a continuation of downward trends already evident under Biden. More important, however, is the fact that the humanitarian parole programmes that the Biden administration implemented alongside deterrents have been dramatically rolled back. The authorisation of 30,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the US every month, for example, played an important role in the 98 percent reduction in irregular entries that had been achieved by September 2024.

Altogether, removing these pathways may prove counter-productive in the longer term, particularly if (as seems likely) insecurity, political instability, economic stagnation and other drivers of migration in sending countries persist. In that scenario, it is uncertain whether the current low numbers will be sustainable indefinitely: indeed, it is possible that human smuggling networks could see their business expand under these conditions. It is also the case that the cancellation of various humanitarian protections for displaced national groups has effectively irregularised more than 1 million people in the country, significantly expanding the existing number of “illegal” immigrants.

A centrepiece of Trump’s 2024 campaign was the promise to launch an unprecedented deportation plan, targeting as many as 15 million people. In the first months of 2025, however, the administration appeared to be lagging behind its targets, with lower deportation figures than those under Biden in the financial year of 2024 (though, by the middle of the year, the figures appeared to be equal or slightly higher, as deportations increased at pace). In large part this is because, as movement to the southern border has reduced, the number of people apprehended and quickly returned – accounting for the majority of Biden-era deportations – has also fallen. Instead, the Trump administration has focused its efforts on the identification, detention and removal of irregular migrants already living in the US interior, a far more energy-consuming and disruptive process. As a result, while deportations by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have fallen since Trump took office, the number of arrests carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has doubled.

The financial costs of this drive are considerable, reflected in the budget reconciliation bill passed in the summer and the estimated USD 170 billion allocated to immigration detention and enforcement, including an almost three-fold increase to USD 75 billion for the construction of new immigration holding facilities (USD 45 billion) and enforcement and deportation operations (USD 29.9 billion). While ICE has been offering up to USD 50,000 as a signing bonus to new recruits, with reports (denied by government officials) of a daily quota of at least 3,000 arrests or deportations, the administration has mobilised a broad range of agencies to carry out immigration-related functions that would not normally fall within their remit. For instance, by expanding the use of the so-called 287(g) agreement, ICE is delegating authority to participate in the identification, interrogation and processing of prospective deportees to local and state police officers. This approach risks promoting discriminatory policing and undermining trust between officials and local residents.

While the hundreds of thousands of deportations carried out near the southern border for years have largely been out of sight of the American public, the recent crackdown on migrants across the country has been far more visible. Though most arrests and deportations have been carried out in jails and prisons, the crackdown has been notable for extending its operations to ‘sensitive areas’ previously considered off-limits, such as schools, hospitals and places of worship. Many incidents have involved the apprehension of long-term US residents, from a teenaged high-school student to a 67-year-old woman living in the country for almost 50 years. Critics have condemned these increasingly invasive raids as “cruel and inhumane”. The government has done little to assuage these concerns, with detainees held indefinitely in squalid, overcrowded facilities such as Krome detention centre in Miami, where several people have died during the year. Critics have argued that the deteriorating conditions in these facilities are expressly intended as spectacles of “visual cruelty”. This appears to be the case, for instance, of the centre dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, built on an area of Floridian swampland known for its crocodiles and pythons – though, in August, a judge ordered its closure on environmental grounds.

Many deportations have been carried out arbitrarily and in violation of international law, including the transfer of hundreds of Salvadorans and Venezuelans to a mega-prison in El Salvador, despite the notoriously abusive conditions there. Numerous incidents, such as the deportation, in April, of three US citizen children (including one with stage four cancer, who was sent back without any medication) with their mothers, highlight the lack of due process that appears to have accompanied many deportations. Others, including deportees from Cuba, Laos, Mexico and Vietnam, have been deported to third countries, such as South Sudan and Uganda. A key complication for the Trump administration’s planned deportation campaign has been securing the approval of other governments to receive deportees. Countries such as Costa Rica and Panama, both with established partnerships with the US around migration, have also accepted expelled migrants, including non-nationals from various Asian countries. The administration appears to be extending this partnership framework further south, with a Safe Third Party Agreement with Paraguay (part of a broader trade and security deal) signed in August, to allow asylum-seekers in the US to be granted protection in Paraguay instead. Trump has also reportedly used tariffs to pressure some countries to cooperate: for instance, the threat of higher trade tariffs has been deployed to push Canada and Mexico to increase security at their respective borders to prevent irregular entry into the US.

Peter Grant

Author

Peter Grant is a researcher, writer and editor specialising in migration, urban development, and climate change