The Darién Gap is a stretch of jungle spanning the border between Colombia and Panama, the only missing section of the Pan-American Highway that stretches from Alaska to southern Argentina. For good reason, it used to be considered impenetrable. But a record 520,000 people crossed it heading northwards in 2023, including many children. Many have lost their lives trying to cross it.

People are also increasingly taking to the seas. A new people trafficking route has opened up across the Caribbean Sea via the Bahamas. Growing numbers of desperate migrants – mostly from conflict-ridden Haiti but also from distant countries including Cameroon, China and Iraq – are using it to try to get to Florida. It’s risky too. Last November, at least 30 people died when a boat from Haiti capsized off the Bahamas.

The pattern is clear: as is also the case in Europe, when safer routes are closed off, people take riskier ones. Millions of people in Latin American and Caribbean countries, from Cuba and Haiti to Nicaragua and Venezuela, are fleeing authoritarianism, insecurity, violence, poverty and climate disasters. Most remain in other countries in the region that typically present fewer challenges to arriving migrants – but also offer limited opportunities for long-term integration and economic progress. The USA therefore remains a strong migration magnet. Its tightening immigration controls are the key reason people are heading into the jungle and taking to the sea.

Changing trends

In Latin America, most migrants stay in the region. Out of the staggering 7.7 million Venezuelans who’ve left their country since 2017 – greater than the numbers of displaced Syrians or Ukrainians – almost three million have stayed next door in Colombia, with about 1.5 million staying in Peru, close to half million in both Brazil and Ecuador, and hundreds of thousands in other countries across the region, from Argentina to Panama.

But migration trends are dynamic. While most Nicaraguans and Venezuelans initially moved towards neighbouring countries and other Latin American countries, in recent years growing numbers have started heading towards the USA. National-level developments such as the recent outbreak of drug-related violence in Ecuador can be expected to trigger further departures of migrants who sought refuge there.

Latin American host countries are relatively welcoming. Unlike in many global north countries, politicians don’t usually stoke xenophobia or vilify migrants for political gain, and states don’t usually reject people at borders or deport them, instead trying to provide paths for legal residence. Overall they’ve been pragmatic enough to strike a balance between openness and orderly entry, and have even taken some steps to coordinate their efforts. As a result, a high proportion of Venezuelan migrants have acquired some form of legal status in their host countries.

But host states haven’t planned for long-term integration. In many cases, resident status is temporary and needs frequent renewal. While residence typically means access to education and healthcare, the right to work varies between countries, and access to jobs is very uneven.

Hosts countries face typical global south challenges, such as high levels of inequality and many unmet social needs, so opportunities are usually limited. That’s why those moving towards the USA include many Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans already living in other countries, mostly driven by the lack of opportunities, although language barriers and racial discrimination are also significant motivations for Haitians.

While the USA has tightened its migration policies, its porous southern border – the world’s longest border between global north and global south – remains inviting for those willing to give it a try. In its 2022 fiscal year, US authorities had a record 2.4 million encounters with unauthorised migrants at the border. Increasingly many had come a long way, having crossed the Darién Gap and then moved northward across Central America and Mexico.

Dangerous journeys

They do so at great risk. United Nations Migration’s Missing Migrants Project reported that 8,542 people died or went missing during migration around the world in 2023 – the highest annual figure in a decade. At least 1,275 of these were in the Americas, with 636 recorded deaths and disappearances at the USA-Mexico border and 247 in the Caribbean.

It’s unclear how many people have perished so far in the Darién Gap. In many cases, deaths go unreported and bodies are never recovered. The crossing – on foot or by boat, and often through a combination of both – can last anywhere from three to 15 days. As they cross rivers and mountains, people suffer from the jungle’s harshness and difficult weather.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), much of the danger is because the Darién is one of the world’s most humid regions and doesn’t have any proper infrastructure. People can easily slip and fall on its steep paths or drown in rivers. Hired guides can leave people stranded. Those who can’t keep up can get disoriented and lost. The difficult terrain forces many to leave their supplies along the way, including food and drinking water. Most of the cases MSF responds to involve sprains and fractures, followed by diarrhoea, skin diseases, including because of insect bites, and respiratory ailments.

Worse, migrants often cross paths with local criminal groups that steal from them, kidnap them or commit rape. In December 2023, MSF recorded a seven-fold increase in monthly incidents of sexual violence.

Despite the dangers, the number of people crossing in 2023 almost doubled compared to 2022. According to the Panamanian government, of the roughly 250,000 who crossed in 2022, more than 150,000 were Venezuelans. Also risking the crossing were Ecuadorians, Cubans and Haitians, and even people from African and Asian countries. About a fifth were estimated to be minors. Whole families crossed carrying small children – with the danger of getting separated along the way.

The Darién Gap is only the gateway to Central America – the start of a much longer journey. The dangers don’t stop. Many end up staying somewhere in Mexico, but others will keep marching northwards and face many hazards trying to reach the USA – drowning in the Rio Grande or other water courses, or dying of heat exposure and dehydration in the desert during the day, or of hypothermia at night. Migrants have also died of asphyxiation in botched people smuggling operations and killed in traffic accidents while fleeing the US Border Patrol. They are often blackmailed by smugglers and experience human rights abuses, including lethal violence, from Border Patrol agents. Some have been victims of vigilante killings on the US side of the border.

US policies

Starting in early 2021, the administration of President Joe Biden made several changes to the US immigration system. It rescinded the travel ban imposed by its predecessor on primarily Muslim-majority and African countries and restored the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which protects people brought to the USA as children from deportation and gives them work permits. It granted Venezuelans living in the USA Temporary Protection Status, allowing them to stay and work legally, and established parole processes, including family reunification parole processes, for immigrants of several nationalities.

It also suspended three asylum cooperative agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which allowed the USA to send asylum seekers to these countries and bar them from applying for protection in the USA. In 2021 the government also stopped construction of Trump’s wall at the southern border – but Biden recently announced a project to build up to 20 miles of border barriers.

It was only in May 2023 that the Biden administration finally lifted Title 42, a public health order that, under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, was used by the Trump administration to immediately expel those caught crossing the border, with no right to apply for asylum. However, to deal with the surge in immigration the authorities expected would follow – which never materialised – the government issued several new rules that became known as the ‘asylum ban’. Before showing up at the border, people are now required to make an appointment with a smartphone app or have proof they have previously sought and failed to obtain asylum in the countries they’ve travelled through on their way to the USA. If they don’t comply with these requirements, they’re automatically presumed ineligible for asylum and can be subjected to expedited removal.

Civil society points out that the required appointment is very difficult to get. The app frequently fails and many migrants don’t have smartphones, adequate wi-fi or a data plan. They face language and education barriers, and are at risk of exploitation by people pretending to help. Barriers to seeking asylum have risen to the point that advocates view them as violating the Refugee Convention’s principle of non-refoulment, according to which people can’t be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. Advocates have repeatedly complained that they’re unable to provide proper legal counsel to migrants in asylum hearings, conducted in Customs and Border Protection facilities shortly after arrival. These policies qualify as illegal pushbacks under international law.

Election politics

Pressure is intensifying as the USA’s November 2024 presidential election approaches, with politicians making border control an intensely political issue and competing to appear as the toughest on immigration.

Republican governors of southern states such as Texas have made a show of bussing newly arrived migrants to far-off cities run by Democrats, dumping them there with no support, treating them as pawns in a political game. Civil society has mobilised a vital voluntary effort to help in response in cities such as New York. Congress Republicans have also repeatedly delayed backing support to Ukraine unless new border control measures are enacted in return.

In October 2023, Biden announced plans to strengthen the southern border and resume deportation flights to Venezuela, which had been paused. But no one has gone lower than Donald Trump, who appears to be revisiting his performance of 2016, when his campaign stoked fears of an imaginary ‘migrant caravan’ marching towards the US southern border.

On the campaign trail in December 2023, Trump told a rally that ‘immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country’ – a straightforward use of white supremacist rhetoric, invoking the far-right ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, which presents migration as part of a plan to replace the white population.

Trump’s comments about migrants are growing increasingly dehumanising; he has repeatedly referred to them as ‘animals’. In his 2024 State of the Union speech, Biden responded to Trump directly, stating he refused to ‘demonise immigrants’. But in the same breath he urged Republicans to pass a bipartisan immigration bill they’re currently blocking, which would further tighten asylum rules, expand funding for border operations and to hire additional staff, including Border Patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges, and give the president authority to empower border officials to summarily deport migrants during spikes in illegal immigration.

Despite including substantial concessions that make it the likely target of human rights litigation, the new legislation package continues to be rejected by hardcore Republicans who see it as not strict enough.

For migrants and asylum seekers, the prospects look bleak. As far as their rights are concerned, the election campaign is a race to the bottom. A Trump victory could only bring further bad news – but a Biden win is unlikely to bring much progress either. Election results aside, people will keep trying to find a way, taking to the sea or venturing through the jungle, the barbed wire and the desert. Politicians need to recognise this reality and commit to upholding the human rights of all who strive to find a future in the USA.

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