By Moncho Torres
Miramar, Panama (EFE).- A reverse wave of migration is flowing through Panama as thousands of mostly Venezuelan migrants, once headed for the United States, now retrace their steps southward. Blocked by rising United States restrictions and mounting transport costs, many find themselves stuck in the remote coastal town of Miramar.
The recent election of Donald Trump and the cancellation of asylum appointments through the CBP-One app have driven many migrants to abandon their northbound journeys.
According to Panamanian authorities, at least 12,730 migrants have headed south through the country since Trump’s electoral victory in Nov. 2024, 94% of them Venezuelans.
“I couldn’t wait anymore,” said Marielbis Eloina Campos, a 33-year-old Venezuelan mother of four.
After spending over a year in a Mexican shelter awaiting an asylum appointment, Campos decided to return to Brazil, where her relatives live.
Campos described crossing the Darién jungle alone with her children, including a baby she gave birth to during her journey.
“Here, the sea and the money stop us,” she said, explaining that a private boat to Colombia costs around 260 dollars per person, far out of reach for most.
Migrants struggle to leave Panama
In Miramar, dozens of migrants, primarily Venezuelans, wait for a way out.
With no road connecting Panama’s Caribbean coast to Colombia, they must cross by sea or jungle.
While Panama’s government has provided occasional humanitarian boats, most migrants remain stranded.
“The authorities pulled me from a passenger van and sent me back to Paso Canoas (on the Costa Rican border),” Campos said. “I don’t want to stay here. I just want to keep going.”
She called on authorities to stop treating migrants like criminals, “crossing borders with my children at dawn, through the jungle, risking everything, it’s not how we should be treated.”
Panama’s National Aeronaval Service transported 109 migrants by sea earlier this month from Colón to the border town of La Miel, and officials have hinted more trips could follow.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino recently expressed concern about the rising southbound flow, “it worries me that the number of citizens moving from north to south is increasing.”
No support for the journey back
For Jesús Alfredo Aristigueta, 32, and his wife, the journey back south has been just as perilous.
After being kidnapped in Mexico and held for five days in a cramped house with dozens of other migrants, they decided to return to Venezuela.
“In the past, we’d get a push north, buses, help at border posts. Now that we really need support going back, there’s nothing,” Aristigueta said.
He noted that current policies and protocols are leaving returning migrants “adrift.”
After a record 500,000 migrants crossed the Darién in 2023, Panama now reports a near-total collapse of the northbound movement.
In contrast, the number of southbound migrants peaked at 3,013 in April, dropping to 1,779 by late June, according to government data.
Yet for families like Campos’, the obstacles to continuing their journey are not just policy, they’re existential. “If there were a road here,” she said, looking toward the Caribbean Sea, “we’d already be in Colombia.” EFE
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