14,000 Migrants Have Turned Back, Headed South Amid News of Closed Border, Report Estimates

In a trend known as “reverse flow,” about 14,000 migrants, who had sought to reach the U.S. border, have turned around since the start of the Trump administration, according to an estimate in a recent report.  

A large percent of the migrants who have turned back are from Venezuela, according to the report from the governments of Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. The Trump administration has acted to end Temporary Protected Status for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who entered the U.S. under the Biden administration.

The Supreme Court ruled in May that the administration could deport illegal aliens while litigation continued to move through the courts over ending the Biden administration program.  

The threat of removal, or denial of entry at the border, appears to have created the “reverse flow” trend.  

The report, which was published with support from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, found that northward migration has fallen by 97% in 2025.  

Migration through the Darién Gap—a 60-mile stretch of dense rain forest that connects Panama and Colombia—spiked under President Joe Biden. About 1.5 million migrants from 170 countries passed through the Darién Gap from 2021 to mid-2024, according to estimates by the Center for Immigration Studies. Now, migration through the Darién Gap is nearly nonexistent, according to the report.  

A migrant’s journey north to the U.S. southern border from Venezuela is extremely dangerous. In addition to the risks of traversing through the Darién Gap, women face a high risk of sexual exploitation at the hands of the criminal cartel members or other criminals. Injury often results in being left behind, which can mean death if abandoned in the desert or jungle.  

The flow of migrants traveling to the U.S. southern border from countries across the globe has seen a dramatic decline since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office.  

Fewer than 150 illegal aliens arrived between ports of entry at the southern border in July, down from a daily average of over 5,800 in July 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection. The Trump administration has also stopped paroling illegal aliens into the U.S., touting that, for several months now, not a single migrant to arrive at the border has been voluntarily allowed to remain in the U.S.  

About half the 14,000 migrants returning south plan to go back to Venezuela, while one-fourth plan to settle in Colombia, and the remaining migrants are traveling to other South American countries, according to the report. There has been a mass exodus from Venezuela following dictator Nicolas Maduro’s rise to power in the South American nation. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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