In recent years, caravans have failed to reach the U.S. border, now forcing migrants along more dangerous and costly routes north.
Significant drop in immigration at Mexico-Guatemala border due to President Trump
The decline in immigration at the Guatemala-Mexico border is the result of the Trump administration’s border enforcement and mass deportation campaign. This article was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
It was still dark as hundreds of migrants walked along a road in Tapachula, Mexico, heading north toward the United States. Police emergency lights flashed as they chased them.
One of them was wearing a Dak Prescott Dallas Cowboys uniform. Another was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. Some wore Nike T-shirts and Tommy Hilfiger hoodies, iconic brands coveted by American teens. All prove that American influence extends far south of the border.
In January 2025, hundreds of youth and young families banded together, hoping to ensure the safety of their numbers and improve their chances of reaching the United States. They were frustrated by the glacial pace of processing documents in Mexico and were understandably concerned that the impending inauguration of President Donald Trump would limit their options.
However, like many similar groups, this group was quickly disbanded by Mexican immigration officials.
At least 67 migrant caravans left Central America and southern Mexico between 2018 and early 2025, according to estimates by Eduardo Torre Cantalapiedra, a researcher at Mexico’s Northern Frontier University. In total, more than 100,000 immigrants hoped to reach the United States.
Mass migration has been occurring for decades but has remained largely invisible. The crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border and the formation of these large caravans has brought these groups into the public eye of the American public, sparking anger and fear.
The caravans, which often started with a few hundred people and sometimes exceeded 5,000, became a dog whistle for President Trump and his MAGA supporters, painting them as an invasion of the United States.
The dozens of caravans have sparked political debate over border security and asylum policy, and posed a crisis on the southern border, particularly in El Paso.
“We’ve really come full circle,” said Yael Schacher, an immigration historian and Americas and Europe director for Refugees International. “The idea of caravan security, the idea of security in numbers, has basically been turned on its head as the Trump administration has stoked threats of invasion.”
Hoping to slow down the influx of migrants, President Joe Biden launched the CBP One app to create an orderly way to apply for asylum at the border. Mexico and Central America also joined in the crackdown.
At the time, immigrants and their advocates said they regularly faced kidnappings, disappearances and extortion from Mexican law enforcement and immigration authorities, cartels and other criminal organizations.
“The caravan was a lifeline,” said Bartolo Fuentes, a Honduran congressman and radio journalist who accompanied the caravan in 2018. “In any mountain where you could be assaulted or killed or fall off a train, going in caravans, supporting each other and seeking the protection of the authorities, rather than going secretly, was to prevent these people from acting in secret and putting themselves at risk.”
Visualize the transition
Early one morning in October 2018, hundreds of migrants departed from a bus stop in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, heading to the Guatemalan border and eventually to the United States.
People began gathering at the bus terminal several days ago, drawn by social media posts and group chats promising safety for those seeking to leave the country.
The caravan grew as it set off north. Migrants were seeking to flee the country following the illegal re-election of Juan Orlando Hernández and the subsequent violent crackdown on opposition and protests.
By the time the caravan reached Guatemala’s border with Mexico, reporters on the ground and international aid groups estimated that as many as 5,000 people had headed north, including migrants from El Salvador and Guatemala who joined them along the way.
Other caravans departed in the months and years that followed, receiving widespread coverage in the U.S. and international media.
“Honduran immigrants played a very important role. They made (immigration) visible,” said Manuel Flores, a researcher at FLASCO Honduras.
Ultimately, tens of thousands of migrants, mostly the poorest who could not afford to pay smugglers, left Honduras in caravans. Government forces tried to stop their advance. They endured rain, cold, hunger, thirst, and strong sunlight as they made their way north.
They followed the footsteps of a caravan that left Mexico’s southern city of Tapachula in March 2018 for Tijuana, Mexico.
The caravan came to the attention of President Trump, who expressed his anger over the threat on Twitter weeks later.
In a post, President Trump tweeted, “Border Patrol agents are not allowed to do their jobs properly at the border because of stupid liberal (Democrat) laws like catch and release. It’s getting more and more dangerous. The ‘caravan’ is coming. Republicans must go to the nuclear option now and pass tough laws. No more DACA!”
What makes a Honduran caravan different?
What made these migrant caravans new was their socially organized nature. The group banded together and jointly decided when and where to stop.
Caravans have long been used for religious purposes and as a means of protest in Central America and Mexico. The caravan was organized by Cuban immigrants in 2016 to draw attention to a lack of opportunity in their home country and to protest their lack of options in Mexico and Central America, said Ariel Luis Soto, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
But Honduran organizers took direct inspiration from a caravan of Central American mothers heading to Mexico to search for loved ones who went missing while migrating north, Fuentes said. Each year, these mothers were joined by religious leaders to raise awareness about the dangers of migrating through Mexico.
Changes in the migrant caravan
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration initially issued humanitarian visas to the migrants, allowing them to transit through Mexico.
But by 2020, The caravan began to receive less support from the Mexicans.
“Among Mexicans, the caravan has become a symbol of a lack of respect for the law,” Luis Soto said.
The shift in public opinion came as the United States began to pressure Mexico to further crack down on caravans.
The Mexican government maintained a policy of containing immigration in southern Mexico by 2023.
Guatemala had also begun blocking Honduran caravans from crossing the border.
Various caravans that still formed in southern Mexico and Central America were quickly contained or disbanded after their departure.
The caravan began to decline further in June 2023 after President Biden announced that migrants could only apply for asylum at points of entry.
Immigrants waiting to see what happens next
President Trump’s inauguration and the immigration crackdown that began earlier this year have created further uncertainty for migrants across the hemisphere.
The sudden closure of the CBP One app on January 20, the expansion of deportations, and the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border have led many people in the region to consider moving to the United States. Many migrants stranded due to the app’s closure have begun heading back south to their home countries.
However, the flow of migrants north has not completely stopped.
“It’s a lie to say there are no more immigrants. They do exist,” said Juan José Hurtado, director of Guatemalan immigrant rights group Pop Noj. “The only thing is, it means more cost and more risk.”
Advocates say the Trump administration’s crackdown has put migrants at risk of kidnapping and extortion, making travel even more dangerous.
Hurtado and other advocates in Guatemala say the cost for migrant guides and smugglers now ranges from $16,000 to nearly $20,000, an increase of $5,000 from three years ago.
Schacher, of Refugees International, said he has heard of migrants paying smugglers as much as $20,000 for transit from Costa Rica.
Hurtado, who works in Huehuetenango department in Guatemala’s western highlands, said rising costs and uncertainty in the United States are causing most would-be migrants to stay, at least for now.
“Their eyes are always on the north,” Hurtado said.
change migratory route
With access to the United States largely closed, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Ecuadorians in particular are turning to Spain, or to a lesser extent Germany, as destinations, said Flores, the FLASCO Honduras researcher.
But Europe is only an option for those who can afford to get there. Schacher said people without resources are “stranded or only have enough money to get back to where they were.”
Jeff Abbott covers the perimeter for the El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Contact details are as follows:jdabbott@gannett.com@palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or Bluesky @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social.
