When Donald Trump returned to office on 20 January last year, he began rolling out a draconian migration policy that has effectively ended access to asylum at the US-Mexico border and shaken up migration dynamics throughout Latin America.
One of the first moves the Trump administration made was to shut down a pathway to seek asylum in the US for people in Mexico using a cellphone application called CBP One. In a matter of minutes, about 300,000 people in the app’s pipeline, including Mario Torres, found themselves stranded.
Mario left South America in September 2024. He traversed the Darién Gap – the lawless and dangerous stretch of jungle connecting Colombia and Panama. In Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, his money ran low and travelling wore him down. In Veracruz, Mexico, he was shot by men who wanted to rob or kidnap him. Mario eventually made it to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey in January 2025, but by then it was already too late.
The New Humanitarian has spent much of the past 15 months reporting throughout Latin America, trying to piece together an answer to one pressing question: what happened to the 300,000 people who saw their dreams of a better life suddenly rebuffed when Trump returned to office?
The picture that emerged is of a situation very much still in flux: some people have returned home, others have run out of resources and have ended up stranded in various countries, while many are still searching for a place where they can find stability.
