The shattered dream of migrating to the US and the odyssey of returning: I was in jail for four months. That's the only way I got to know New York'

"Laime Arold, a 26-year-old Haitian, buys energy bars at a small shop on the side of the Pan-American Highway in southern Chiapas, Mexico. Jose Adan, a Honduran, prays aloud in a park in Tapachula, asking God to protect him from kidnappers and the police along the way. Gerardo Aguilar, a Venezuelan, travels at 60 miles per hour, lying across two seats on a bus headed for Guatemala. The three all have something in common: they are in Mexico and they are migrants. None of them are heading north. They are heading south."

"In the last year, the first of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, thousands of migrants (at least 14,000 as of September) have undertaken a reverse journey, driven by policies of terror and persecution by immigration agents. Between October 2025 and January 2026, this newspaper spoke with migrants making that journey in reverse. Southbound migration is not a new phenomenon, but it has become more pronounced under Trump's xenophobic administration."

"Venezuela, Haiti, and Honduras, three of the countries that have sent the most migrants to North America in the last decade, reappear on this map, now in reverse. According to official data, nearly 2.5 million Venezuelans, Haitians, and Hondurans have arrived in the United States in the last 10 years. And now many of them are returning."

At least 14,000 migrants have undertaken reverse migration from the United States during Trump's second term, driven by intensified immigration enforcement and persecution. Migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, and Honduras—countries that sent 2.5 million people to the U.S. in the past decade—are now returning south. These individuals endured extreme hardships to reach America, including crossing dangerous terrain, facing kidnapping, and working without legal status. Now confronted with policies of terror and xenophobic administration practices, many are choosing to leave. This southbound migration pattern, while not entirely new, has become significantly more pronounced under current policies, representing a reversal of the northward migration trend that dominated the previous decade.

Read at english.elpais.com