The shifting routes of immigration in Mexico and Central America
Maldito País
septiembre 2, 2025
“We can’t leave the shelter because the cartels are constantly watching us, and there have been cases where people have been kidnapped right at the door. We’ve only leave for our medical appointments,” is the testimony of a Honduran woman stranded in a shelter in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. This account is part of the report: Rejected: The devastating human impact of immigration policy changes in the United States, Mexico, and Central America from Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
The testimony of the Honduran woman is given in the context of the closure of the right to asylum in the United States ordered by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. In addition to new legal developments, we also find the reduction of resources that the United States applied to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which funded the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar).
This series of factors keeps migrants waiting endlessly, under conditions of confinement inside shelters in Mexico, where they remain stranded, as asylum application processes now take three times longer than before.Without this immigration regulation framework, they cannot obtain work permits, and their freedom of movement is limited.
The delays at Comar have caused migrants to organize and manifest through caravans, which have left from Tapachula, Chiapas, to Mexico City and Monterrey, Nuevo León. This is done with the purpose to demand their right to receive documents that recognize them as refugees. These types of mobilizations are no longer intended to reach the United States, as was often the case in the past. This time, the goal of migrants is to gain visibility, feel safe, and ask Mexican authorities to expedite the process. The statement «We are not criminals, we are workers, we are migrants” , is shouted from one of the members of the caravan that left Tapachula, Chiapas, two weeks ago.
“I am processing my asylum application in Mexico, regardless of whether I ultimately want to reach the United States; returning to my country is not an option. I abandoned everything there… I want to reach the United States mainly for my children, who are already there and I haven’t seen them since 2016… Those of us seeking refuge are being severely criminalized. The discourse coming from the United States, especially the government, is very inhumane,” a Honduran woman stranded in northern Mexico told MSF. She will continue to wait for the moment when the right to asylum is reestablished in the United States, hoping for the possibility of being reunited with her children.
Reduction of mobility
The long wait in Mexico is keeping migrants in a state of uncertainty and insecurity. Migratory movements have been reduced from the south, in the «Gap» of the Darien jungle, to the northern border between Mexico and the United States.
In Darién, the jungle that connects Colombia and Panama, the number of people crossing had already been declining. However, from December 2024 to May 2025, the decrease concluded with only 13 people, down from the more than 30,000 registered during the same period the previous year, according to data from the Panamanian National Immigration Service.
Further north in Mexico, the Migration Policy Unit (UPM) recorded an unprecedented decline. During 2024, 1,234,698 irregular migrants were registered. During the first five months of 2025, the number of registered migrants was 113,612. This is just 9.2% of the total number registered in 2024.
For its part, the United States Border Patrol recorded a decrease starting in February, since from 189,913 arrests at border crossings in February 2024, on the same date this year, it only made 11,710 arrests, which is equivalent to just 6% of the previous year, that is, a decrease of almost 94%.
Junek Vargas, an internationalist and migration researcher, explains that since the CBP One application was shut down in January 2025, it was estimated that there were around 30,000 people waiting for an appointment to apply for asylum and were stuck in Mexico. «So, this is the main cause that generated the reconfiguration of migratory mobility throughout the region, and especially toward Mexican territory,» the researcher explains.
In this reconfiguration, it can be seen in how many people are still waiting in Tabasco, Tapachula, and Mexico City. Vargas explains, adding that in Mexico City, the city government has arranged flights so that many of the migrant population who were waiting, who were from Venezuela, could return to their countries voluntarily.
Doctors Without Borders indicates that while the number of people on the move has decreased, the number of mental health care cases the organization is treating has increased, because «people who had an appointment at CBP One, only to have it canceled overnight, suffered anxiety attacks and crises, seeing their only chance for hope canceled.»
MSF adds that people are further exposed and vulnerable because, without safe mechanisms for requesting asylum, they are doubly exposed. “Migration routes remain dangerous and violent. In many cases, people face extreme violence: torture, sexual violence, kidnapping, extortion, robbery, and many more, as well as labor and sexual exploitation,” the organization concludes.
