Migrants in Mexico are heading south. What to know about this Trump-era phenomenon:
The flow of migrants at the Guatemala-Mexico border has dramatically decreased since the Trump administration implemented stricter border policies.
Ferrying migrants across the murky waters of the Suchiate River was a lucrative job for Alexis Vargas.
Vargas floated groups of migrants across the informal border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico on a makeshift raft made from wooden boards lashed to fat inner tubes. He raked in more than $100 a day, good money in this impoverished region.
As soon as Vargas dropped off one group, another group of migrants waited on the other side to cross, Vargas recalled. From long before dawn until well past dark, similar rafts choked the river, packed with as many as 20 migrants per raft. Hundreds crossed daily from the Guatemalan side to the Mexican side.
Their destination: the United States.
But on a recent afternoon, as the sun began to set, the 28-year-old raft pilot sat on a cement landing with nothing to do but scroll on his phone. His empty raft was parked in the water nearby, alongside other empty ones.
The flow of migrants that kept Vargas and other raft pilots here busy for years, surging during the Biden administration, has vanished under President Donald Trump.
"I'm telling you, after the president closed the doors, hardly anyone crosses anymore," Vargas said, dressed in soccer shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops in the sweltering tropical heat.
Vargas nodded at the nearly deserted river. Only a handful of rafts floated lazily in the water. Instead of large groups of migrants, the rafts carried only small groups of locals going back and forth to shop or to work.
The dramatic decrease in migrants on the Guatemala-Mexico border is the direct result of the Trump administration's border crackdown and mass deportation campaign taking place some 2,000 miles away from this city on the southern tip of Mexico.
The criminal arrests of asylum-seekers who enter the United States illegally, the shutdown of the CBP One app, the deployment of armed military troops to assist the Border Patrol, and scenes of heavily armed masked federal immigration authorities storming worksites and conducting military-style arrests in immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Chicago and other U.S. cities has stoked fear in migrants, effectively staunching the flow.
Mexico's southern border with Guatemala mirrors the newfound stillness along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, where illegal crossings have plunged from record highs during the Biden administration to the lowest levels in decades under the Trump administration.
What's more, a new phenomenon is taking shape. Migrants discouraged by the Trump administration's tough policies are giving up. Instead of heading north, they are turning around and heading south, according to interviews with migrants and migration experts.
Tapachula: Once a gateway, now an exit
For years, Tapachula, a city of 350,000 just a few miles inland from the Suchiate River, was the main gateway for migrants traveling from Central America into Mexico.
From Tapachula, migrants began the long and perilous trek through Mexico to the United States, often in large caravans.
Along the journey, they faced many dangers: illness, dehydration and heatstroke from natural elements; injury and death from vehicle accidents and falls from trains; sexual assault, kidnappings, extortion and human trafficking from criminal gangs; and mistreatment from police and other authorities.
But now, Tapachula is turning into an exit route for migrants headed south instead of north.
The reverse flow is fueled by migrants on the way to the United Staes when Trump took office on Jan. 20. Now, because of the Trump crackdown, they have decided to reverse course and head home or to some other country.
The decision to turn around was painful, said Juan Piña, a 45-year-old migrant from Venezuala.
His extended family of nine left Venezuela in October 2024 for the United States after selling everything they owned, Piña said.
They trekked through six countries, including five days through the notorious Darien Gap jungle between Colombia and Panama, before reaching Tuxtla Gutierrez, a city in southern Mexico about five hours north of Tapachula. --->LOTS MORE HERE
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