MEXICO CITY (AP) — More than 14,000 mainly Venezuelan migrants who hoped to reach the United States have reversed course and turned south since U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown began, according to a report published Friday by the governments of Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica.
The phenomenon, known as “reverse flow” migration, is largely made up of Venezuelan migrants who fled their country's long-running economic, social and political crises only to encounter U.S. immigration policy no longer open to asylum-seekers.
Migration through the treacherous Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama peaked in 2023 when more than half a million migrants crossed. That flow slowed somewhat in 2024, but dried up almost completely early this year.
Friday's report, published with support of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that northward migration had dropped 97% this year.
Migrants traveling south interviewed in Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia by those countries' ombudsmen offices were almost all Venezuelans (97%) and about half of them said they planned to return to Venezuela, according to the report. Nearly all said they were returning because they could no longer legally reach the U.S.
Since 2017, around 8 million people have fled the crisis in Venezuela. For years, those migrants flocked to other South American nations, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and more.
That changed in 2021, when hundreds of thousands of people set out for the U.S., braving the Darien Gap along the way.
A U.S. government smartphone app became the main way for asylum-seekers to enter the U.S. under the Biden administration. Then thousands of migrants became stranded in Mexico when Trump ended the use of the app on his first day in office.
Now, those migrants who were still trying to reach the U.S. when Trump entered and changed border policies have reversed course, traveling back to South America. Around a quarter of those interviewed planned to go to neighboring Colombia, previously the epicenter of the mass migration from Venezuela. Others said they didn’t know where they were going.
Colombia and other South American nations spent years pleading for aid from the international community to cope with the brunt of Venezuela's migratory crisis, before many of those same migrants began moving toward the United States. Today, Venezuela's political and economic turmoil rages on.
Migrants, most of whom trekked days across the Darien Gap on their way north, are even more vulnerable as they make their way back. They have fewer funds to finance their journey and few prospects for work when they get back. Migrants are dropped into regions with a heavy presence of criminal groups that increasingly prey upon them, the report said.
“Most of these people are already victims of human rights abuses," Scott Campbell, a U.N. human rights representative in Colombia, said in a statement. “We urge authorities to aid people in this reverse migration to prevent them from being exploited or falling into trafficking networks run by illegal armed groups.”
The shift marks a radical reversal in one of the biggest mass migrations in the world.
Migrants bus south through Mexico and other Central American nations until they arrive in the center of Panama. From there, migrants pay between $260 and $280 to ride on precarious boats packed with people back to Colombia.
They take two different routes. Most island hop north of Panama through the Caribbean Sea, landing in the small town of Necocli, Colombia, where many started their journeys through the Darien.
Others travel south by sea along a jungled swath of Panama and Colombia through the Pacific Ocean, where they are dropped off in remote towns or the Colombian city of Buenaventura. Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office estimates around 450 people have taken the perilous route, and the U.N. documented migrants getting scammed and stranded, facing boat accidents and arriving beaten down and vulnerable from their journey.
The region is one of the most violent in Colombia, and lack of state presence is filled by warring armed groups.
FILE - A boat transporting migrants departs the Caribbean coastal village of Miramar, Panama, for the Colombian border, Feb. 27, 2025, as migrants return from southern Mexico after abandoning hopes of reaching the U.S. in a reverse flow triggered by the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Luis Sanchez, center, sits with other Venezuelan migrants on a boat leaving Gardi Sugdub on Panama's Caribbean coast, Feb. 23, 2025, after giving up hopes of reaching the U.S. while in southern Mexico amid President Trump's crackdown on migration. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
HAVANA (AP) — Trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport Thursday as white-gloved Cuban soldiers marched out of a plane carrying urns with remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces and placed the urns on a long table next to the pictures of those killed. Tens of thousands of people paid their respects, saluting the urns or holding their hand over their heart, many of them drenched from standing outside in a heavy downpour.
Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized over the past half-century.
The soldiers were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the Jan. 3 raid on his residence to seize the former leader and bring him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.
State television also showed images of more than a dozen people it said were wounded combatants from the raid, accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez after arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. Some were in wheelchairs.
Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. have spiked, with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.
Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.
Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.
Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas called the slain soldiers “heroes” of an anti-imperialist struggle spanning both Cuba and Venezuela. In an apparent reference to the U.S., he said the “enemy” speaks of “high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy.
“We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother,” Álvarez said.
The events demonstrate that “imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.
Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, was among the thousands of Cubans who lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.
“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” Gómez said, adding that she hopes no one invades her country. “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”
The 32 military personnel ranged in age from 26 to 60 and were part of protection agreements between the two countries.
Officials in Cuba have said they expect a massive demonstration Friday across from the U.S. Embassy to protest the deaths.
“People are upset and hurt ... many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.
In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.
In December 1989, officials organized a ceremony to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in a war that defeated the South African army.
In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.
The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived for four years in Venezuela.
“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”
The remains arrived a day after the U.S. announced $3 million in additional aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa. The first flight took off on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.
Cuba had said on Wednesday that any contributions will be channeled through the government.
But U.S. State Department foreign assistance official Jeremy Lewin said Thursday that the U.S. was working with Cuba’s Catholic Church to distribute aid, as part of Washington's efforts to give assistance directly to the Cuban people.
“There’s nothing political about cans of tuna and rice and beans and pasta,” he said Thursday, warning that the Cuban government should not intervene or divert supplies. “We will be watching, and we will hold them accountable.”
Lewin said the Cuban government has a choice to: “Step down or better provide towards people.” Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would provide “billions and billions of dollars” in assistance, as well as investment and development: “That’s what lies on the other side of the regime for the Cuban people.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the U.S. government was “exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes.”
Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
People line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the remains are on display of the Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, as it sprinkles rain in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Military members line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, are on display in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
