Migrants braved the Darien Gap to seek asylum in the US under Trump theyre turning back

PUERTO CARTÍ, Panama — They once braved the jungles of the Darien Gap, trekking days along the perilous migrant passage dividing Colombia and Panama with a simple goal: seek asylum in the U.S.Now, boat-by-boat, those migrants – mainly from the Andean nations of Venezuela and Colombia – have given up after President Donald Trump’s crackdown on asylum, and are returning to the countries they once sought to escape.One of those speed boats zipped through dense jungle-cloaked rivers near the Colombia-Panama border on Sunday, headed south.Inside were around 20 migrants clinging to their backpacks and shielding themselves from the water’s spray.Many of those same people waited months, sometimes more than year in Mexico to get an asylum appointment in the U.S.

through a Biden-era CBP One app, which ended under Trump.“ When Trump arrived and eliminated the application (CBP One) all our hopes went up in smoke,” said Karla Castillo, a 36-year-old Venezuelan traveling with her younger sister.It’s part of what authorities call a “reverse flow” of migrants.The speed boats depart from a rural swathe of Panama and cross the seas in packs, hopping island to island until they reach the northern tip of Colombia.The boats were part of a well oiled migrant smuggling machine that once raked in money from the steady flow of hundreds of thousands of people headed north nearly a year ago.The boat route, which crosses through Indigenous Guna Yala lands, was once part of what smugglers called the VIP route, in which migrants paid more so they wouldn’t have to take the deadly trek through the Darien Gap.But now that much of the Darien’s migrant smuggling industry has collapsed, some smugglers are taking advantage of the reverse migration to charge steep costs to migrants – between $200 and $250 per person, including minors – for the boat rides.Paying via Zelle and other money-transfer apps, for many it was the the last of their money, after having spent a...