About 40 people went up to the boat on the Caribbean coast of Panama, with their belongings in garbage bags and their children clinging to them for the arduous trip that awaited them.
They did not challenge the US government when heading towards the border. They returned to Venezuela – exactly what US authorities wanted them to do – although this meant again to threats of robbery, kidnapping and a dangerous journey.
“It is a frustrated dream,” said Junior Sulbarán, who, like the others, had fled from Venezuela the previous year, taking his little daughter thousands of kilometers to the north and through the treacherous jungle step known as the Darién cap.
He and his family arrived in Mexico City before the second term of President Donald Trump, and soon heard the government’s message. “If you are thinking of entering illegally in the United States, you don’t even think about,” said Kristi Noem, Secretary of National Security, in a White House video published in February. “If you come to our country and infringe our laws, we will chase you.”
There is no clear figure of how many people have decided to leave the United States or have resigned to reach the country, and migration at the southern border had fallen sharply even before Trump assumed the position for the second time.
But an indication that some migrants begin to return to South America is that more than 10,000 people – practically all from Venezuela – have taken Panama boats to Colombia since January, according to Panamanian officials, who claim that every week they leave more.
It is a very small figure compared to the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who entered the United States and Mexico in recent years, but the rise of the new boat by boat to South America is a signal, according to migrants, officials and rights groups, that the hard tactics of the Trump government are taking effect.
“The world is listening to our message that the borders of the United States are closed for those who violate the law,” said Tricia McLaughlin, spokesman for the National Security Department. “The migrants now even turn before reaching our borders.”
For those in the United States, he said, “it is an easy option to leave voluntarily and receive US $ 1,000,” referring to the government’s offer for “voluntary self -portedness.”
Although the Government can proclaim its success, experts claim that many migrants face so many barriers to return home that, even if they are willing, it is extremely difficult to reverse.
“They are trapped, wherever they are,” said Juan Cruz, who was Trump’s main advisor to Latin America during his first term, noting that many migrants live in poverty, are indebted and lack travel documents. Venezuelans, he added, also face a hostile government towards those who left for the United States.
It is possible that Trump’s government doesn’t care how people get home, Cruz said. But if you want to encourage more people to leave, ignore the obstacles to which migrants face “is not the way to do it,” he said. “They have nothing in their favor.”
Among those who leave, migrants from Venezuela in particular, say they feel the target of the government, which has recently ended the protections against deportation and has sent hundreds of men accused of belonging to bands to a prison in El Salvador.
In Texas, buses that are directed to the south are filled with Venezuelans who claim to be afraid of being arrested for their tattoos or separated from their children. In Mexico, there is a desperate competition, which lasts months, to get flights to Caracas. In Panama, Columbus’s outskirts have become a ship operator center that charge hundreds of dollars to climb to rickety boats to border the Darién back to South America.
For many migrants from Venezuela, it is not as easy as raising your hand and climbing a plane.
Some lack documents to travel after years of transfers, or any document, and as Venezuela has few consulates, they are extremely difficult to replace. A passenger of the ship in Panama, Adrián Corona, said that his passport had expired and that his identity document was lost in the Darién.
He had turned around in Mexico, like Sulbarán, his wife and little daughter, Samantha Victoria, who had more than a year of trip when they returned to Panama.
“We left Santiago, from Chile, we passed to Bolivia, from Peru, then Ecuador, then Colombia and then we got into the Darién jungle,” said Sulbarán about his tortuous escape from a Ruinas Venezuela. “Six days we last in the jungle.”
When they left Mexico, they took buses to the south, to the coast of Panama, where they put their belongings in garbage bags to protect them from the storms and splashing of the waves.
“It’s like a loss of time and Money, ”said Josliacner Andrade, Sulbarán’s wife.
Now, new obstacles interposed on their way. Panama has practically sealed the Darién, seeking to help the United States to stop migration to the north and stating that the crossing, on foot, has become too dangerous.
“As the jungle closed, we touched our boats,” said Dayerlín Sandoval, who had traveled by boat from San Antonio, fearing that they deport her without her son.
Many of the Venezuelans saved for months to make the difficult trip, which can cost a small family a few thousand dollars.
Geraldine Rincón, who learned of the boat route through Tiktok, said her mother had sold a motorcycle in Venezuela to help finance the trip for her and her young children.
Simply to climb to a boat, each migrant pays about $ 300, and carries a pink bracelet as proof.
And once on board, the dangers do not end.
The ships travel more than 320 kilometers through the Caribbean, and stop in a town on the banks of the Darien before continuing towards their destination, Colombia. On the way they sometimes pass through postal landscapes – cargo marks next to the Panama Canal, Palmeras covered islands – but often travel over agitated seas and under a scorching sun.
At least one trip has been deadly. In February, an 8 -year -old Venezuelan child drowned and about 20 migrants had to be rescued after the shipwreck of his boat.
For a moment, the migrants who left in early May feared another disaster. When his ship approached a immigration control post on the island of El Porvenir, there was a strong crunch. A propeller had collided with a reef.
They managed to reach the control post, where the Panamanian authorities count heads and ensure mainly that migrants follow their way. But about an hour later, the damaged engine yielded, leaving only one.
The captain looked for a mobile phone signal to ask for reinforcements and the passengers cooked under the midday sun. When the ship advanced with a firm step, the heat was bearable. At this rate, it was suffocating.
Alejandra Rojas opened a juice package for her panting dog, Milú, who had followed her through the Darién jungle. Rojas wore a hat, but most passengers only had t -shirts to cover their heads. Two children vomited.
After 40 minutes under the sun, the reinforcement vessel arrived, and one by one the migrants passed to the children, the bags and the dog through the board. Then they continued on their way, with the waves climbing and the ship hitting the waves strongly.
Finally, after eight hours, the group arrived in Puerto Obaldía, a small town without roads near the border with Colombia.
There they were, on the edge of Darién, in front of a region that has come to see migrants as an economic opportunity … again.
Juanita Goebertus, director of the Division of the Americas of Human Rights Watch, said that the remote corner of Colombia finally arriving the boats is essentially controlled by a criminal group. And migrants knew what awaited them: pay the locals a fortune for food, water, a piece of space to sleep in their courtyards or soils.
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“One is a gold minita,” said Corona. “Everyone, they see it like this.”
The migrants who arrived in the border city embarked the next day to Colombia and then dispersed. Those who headed to Venezuela knew that their relatives, many of whom were hungry, would have little to offer them.
Prepared for the worst, Sulbarán said that he and his wife only planned to pick up their 9 -year -old son and see his family. Then they would turn around and leave Venezuela again.