Thematic Focus

With Donald Trump’s comeback after his 2024 election victory, migration in the United States is in the spotlight once again. His new measures build on policies from his first term, representing a continuation of an existing trajectory where immigration is portrayed as a national security issue.

As new research from the Mixed Migration Centre outlines, President Trump’s second term and turbo-charged policies also build on the legacy of Joe Biden’s presidency, which took a frenetic approach to migration – employing both expansive and restrictive policies with to mixed results. While Biden expanded and created new regular pathways, he relied heavily on executive orders, leaving his progressive policies vulnerable to reversal. This allowed the second Trump administration to quickly revoke protections, putting millions who entered the US under Biden’s pathways at risk of losing their status. At the same time, Biden enacted restrictive policies that curtailed access to territorial asylum, contradictions that, some argue, have helped pave the way for the sweeping hardline measures implemented during Trump’s first six months back in office.

As President Trump implemented a range of tough anti-immigration policies, encounters at the US-Mexico border fell sharply in 2025 compared with 2024. US Customs and Border Protection’s 2025 monthly updates show historically low encounter totals.

On the January 2025 inauguration day of his second presidential mandate, Trump launched a series of executive orders that were particularly tough on migration. They included orders such as the Protecting the American People Against Invasion, Securing Our Border and Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats — which introduced measures such as enhanced screening and vetting of migrants, swifter deportations and the creation of new detention facilities, higher militarisation and securitisation of the US southern border (justified by declaring a “national emergency”) and the immediate halt of asylum processing. Biden-era programmes designed to offer legal pathways to the US, such as the CBP One app, the CHNV parole programme and the Safe Mobility Offices, were immediately cancelled and left hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and migrants in limbo and frustration. These events were widely anticipated by observers calculating what a second Trump presidency would deliver.

Trump’s hardline immigration measures continued throughout the year, with one of the most notorious examples being so-called Operation Safeguard — a massive crackdown led by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, which ended in the detention and deportation of tens of thousands of migrants, including several with no criminal records, during sweeping urban raids in sanctuary cities across the country. In May 2025, the clamp down intensified, with a sharp increase in the daily quota of arrests – from 650 to 3,000.

The results of these policies were almost immediate. In February 2025, border crossings plummeted to their lowest numbers in decades – from more than 130,000 encounters in February 2023 and 2024, to just 8,300 apprehensions – a drop of over 93 percent. In February 2025, only 408 crossings were recorded through the Darién Gap – a 97 percent decrease in migrants entering Panama through Darién from the first quarter of 2024 to the same period in 2025 – a dramatic drop, and the lowest crossing numbers since 2020.

Meanwhile, between January and March 2025, 1,828 Ecuadorian nationals were deported on 18 flights and over 200 Venezuelans were sent to maximum security prisons in El Salvador. Of these, at least 50 were regular migrants.

Those still seeking to reach the US do so by clandestine means, exposing them to additional risks and vulnerabilities. For example, with the suspension of the CBP One app and the cancellation of legal pathways like the CHNV parole programme, migrants en route to the US increasingly rely on smuggling groups for their irregular crossings. This, in turn, empowers gangs and organised criminality, while also increasing the levels of violence, trafficking, extortion and other exploitative practices towards people on the move.

However, as opportunities to migrate to the US become out of reach for many, Latin Americans continue to leave their home countries, driven by factors such as endemic crime, poverty, violence, corruption, lack of opportunities and climate-related events.

In much of Latin America, regional and southward movement is on the rise. In February 2025, for example, dozens of Venezuelan migrants travelled to Colombia instead of going to the US while, by mid-May 2025, up to 145,000 Colombians had left their home country and headed south, primarily towards Argentina, Brazil and Chile, again avoiding going north, which had previously been the typical direction.

With most Latin American countries struggling to cope with a myriad of challenging issues, the arrival of potentially higher-than-ever numbers of migrants from other countries in the region could become problematic.

The region, in fact, is already feeling the pressures and impact from Trump’s new measures. Unable to move northward to their original destination, migrants remain stranded in Mexico, with thousands weighing up whether to turn back or keep trying to enter the US. Both in Mexico City and in other parts of the country, scores of asylum seekers set up makeshift camps while waiting for news and updates on their situation – which, in turn, would dictate the route and destination of their travels. Previously, migrants and the ‘caravans’ of people on the move never stayed in main cities but passed through, going north.

The changing direction and destination of mobility, however, is not the only concerning effect of Trump’s new policies. Another worrying outcome is the massive drop in remittances — on which many South American countries rely in order to bolster their own economy and avoid collapse. By April 2025, for example, Mexican authorities recorded a record drop in remittances of over 12 percent. With fewer migrants being legally admitted to the US, as well as deportations (or the threat of deportations) of those already in the US making people afraid to go to work, external financial contributions will also plunge – in some countries, such as Guatemala, this could result in economic recession. After President Trump’s so-called Big, Beautiful Bill was passed in July, the situation is likely to get even worse, as the bill includes a one percent tax on all remittances.

In 2025, Donald Trump’s new and harsh migration policies are seemingly achieving their desired results – drastically lowering arrival numbers, making asylum processing more difficult, deporting illegal arrivals, lengthening the list of banned countries and more.

As a result, migrants from Latin America are faced with a twofold dilemma. On the one hand, those who are turned down at the US border remain stranded and stuck in legal limbo for indefinite amounts of time. On the other hand, and particularly when the situation at home is desperate, migrants and asylum seekers find themselves compelled to move to other countries in the Latin American region, or even beyond to Europe (in particular, Spain) in search of better opportunities.

However, with much of Latin America experiencing high levels of poverty, violence and other long-standing socio-economic issues of an extremely difficult nature with no simple resolutions, the consequences of these new migratory flows could severely overwhelm the region as a whole, putting additional strains on countries that are already tackling endemic internal problems and simply lack the facilities and infrastructure to manage migration on such a large scale.

Meanwhile, exploitative actors and their practices – gang violence, trafficking, gender-based violence and smuggling – thrive. If this situation persists and more restrictions come into place, we are likely to keep seeing ever-fragmented migration patterns in the region, with more and more people opting to travel outside formal legal frameworks and experiencing an array of risks and vulnerabilities, or remaining trapped in dangerous and vulnerable conditions at home.