In Data: Trump's tough policies alter migration in the Americas

MEXICO CITY - U.S. President Donald Trump's hardline approach to immigration is changing migration patterns in the Americas and creating ripples throughout the continent, according to a report by the Mixed Migration Centre, a research group.

As the Trump administration cracks down on immigration and ramps up mass deportations, there has been a steep decline in migrants heading north to the United States, including people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and the perilous Darién Gap jungle that connects Panama to Colombia, the report said.

U.S.-Mexico border crossings hit 11,017 in March, down from a monthly average of 155,000 over the past four years, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border, seen as a proxy for illegal crossings, hit their lowest in nearly eight years in March, according to CBP data.

The decline in crossings comes as the Trump administration has not only hardened its policy on immigration but also introduced a broad ban on asylum.

Since Trump returned to power this year, the U.S. government has terminated the temporary protected status for Venezuelan and Haitian migrants, and ended a parole program for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals.

It has also increased the deportation of migrants to third countries such as Panama and Mexico, though a U.S. judge in April barred the Trump administration from rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to show they fear being persecuted, tortured or killed there.

Trump's policies seem to be reducing migration from South America to the U.S., according to the report by the Mixed Migration Centre that is part of the Danish Refugee Council.

The number of migrants crossing the increasingly popular route through the Darién Gap to reach the United States plunged by 98% in February from a year ago to just 408, the lowest since 2020, according to data from the Panamanian government.

Faced with the tougher policies, migrants are having to take riskier and longer routes to reach the United States while more women and children are using remote paths through desert areas, like Arizona, according to the Mixed Migration Centre report.

The tougher policies are also leaving some people stranded in Latin American countries, it said, with few resources to protect them.

For example, migrants were left stranded in Mexico after Trump cancelled the CBP One app in January, which allowed people to schedule an appointment to present an asylum application at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Waiting times for asylum applications through the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) have increased to two months from two weeks, Foreign Policy magazine has reported.

While Mexico's refugee agency has yet to publish official figures, preliminary data from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) showed 16,100 migrants applied for asylum in Mexico in the first three months of 2025, in line with the same period last year.

Mexico received nearly 340,000 asylum claims between 2022 and 2024, mainly from people from Honduras, Haiti, and Cuba, according to the country's refugee agency.

Other migrants are choosing to return home.

Costa Rica and Colombia have seen record numbers of migrants passing through their territory to return to their countries of origin, according to the report.

(Reporting by Diana Baptista; Editing by Anastasia Moloney and Ana Nicolaci da Costa.)