It was still dark as hundreds of migrants walked along a road in Tapachula, Mexico, headed north to the United States. Flashing police emergency lights trailed them.
One wore a Dak Prescott Dallas Cowboys uniform. Another sported a New York Yankees baseball cap. Others wore Nike t-shirts or a Tommy Hilfiger hoodie, iconic brands coveted by U.S. teens. All proof that America's influence reaches far south of the border.
The hundreds of young adults and young families had banded together in January 2025, hoping to find safety in numbers and improve their chances of reaching the United States. They were frustrated with the glacial pace of Mexican document processing, and worried, with good reason, that the pending inauguration of PresidentDonald Trumpwould limit their options.
But as with many such groups, this one was quickly dispersed by Mexican immigration officials.
At least 67 migrant caravans left Central America and Southern Mexico between 2018 and early 2025, according to an estimate by Eduardo Torre Cantalapiedra, a researcher at the Mexican College of the Northern Frontier. Together, they counted more than 100,000 migrants who hoped to reach the United States.
Mass migration has occurred for decades, but it has remained largely unseen. The crisis of the arrival of unaccompanied minors at the border and the formation of these massive caravans made these groups visible to the American public, sparking anger and fear.
The caravans, which often started with a few hundred people and occasionally grew to upwards of 5,000, became a dog whistle for Trump and MAGA supporters who painted them as an invasion of America.
The dozens of caravans drove political debates over border security and asylum policy and brought about a crisis across the southern border, especially in El Paso.
"We've just gone full circle," Yael Schacher, an immigration historian and director for the Americas and Europe atRefugees International, said. "The caravans, this idea of safety in numbers, has basically been flipped on its head, because the Trump administration drums up a threat of invasion."
Desperate to rein in the flood of migrants, PresidentJoe Bidenlaunched the CBP One app to create an orderly means of requesting asylum at the border. Mexico and Central America joined in the crackdown.
Back then, migrants and their advocates said they regularly faced kidnappings, disappearances and extortions from Mexican law enforcement and immigration officials, cartels and other criminal groups.
"The caravans were a lifeline," said Bartolo Fuentes, a Honduran congressional representative and radio journalist who accompanied the caravan in 2018. "Instead of going secretly ‒ where in any mountain you can be assaulted or killed, or falling off the train ‒ to go in a caravan, to support each other, and to seek the protection of authorities was to prevent these people from taking risks by going clandestinely."
Making migration 'visible'
Early one morning in October 2018, hundreds of migrants set out from the bus station in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, headed to the border with Guatemala, and ultimately the United States.
People began to gather at the bus terminal days earlier, drawn by social media posts and group chats that promised security for those who wanted to leave the country.
The caravan grew as it set out north. Migrants were looking to escape the country following the illegal re-election of Juan Orlando Hernández and subsequent violent crackdowns on the opposition and protests.
By the time the caravan reached the Guatemalan border with Mexico, it was estimated by reporters at the scene and international aid organizations that as many as 5,000 people were traveling north, including migrants from El Salvador and Guatemala who had joined en route.
Other caravansset out in the monthsandyears that followed, drawing widespread news coverage in the United States and the international media.
"Honduran migrants played a very important role," Manuel Flores, a researcher with FLASCO Honduras, said, "they made (migration) visible."
Eventually, tens of thousands of migrants set out from Honduras in caravans, especially the poorest, who had no money to pay smugglers. Government forces tried to stop their progress. They endured rain, cold, hunger, thirst and intense sun exposure as they pushed northward.
They followed in the footsteps of a March 2018 caravan that had set out from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula towards Tijuana, Mexico.
That caravan caught the attention of Trump, who took to Twittera few weeks laterto rage against the perceived threat.
In a post,Trump tweeted: "Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. "Caravans" coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!"
What made the Honduran caravans different?
What made these migrant caravans new was their socially organized nature. The group stuck together and made collective decisions about where and when to stop.
Caravans have long been used in Central America and Mexico for religious purposes and as a form of protest. Caravans had been organized by Cuban migrants in 2016 to draw attention to the lack of opportunities in their home country and to protest the lack of options for them in Mexico and Central America, said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
But organizers in Honduras found a direct inspiration in the caravans of the mothers from Central America who would travel to Mexico to search for their missing loved ones who had disappeared while migrating north, Fuentes said. Each year, these mothers were joined by religious leaders to raise awareness of the dangers of migrating through Mexico.
A shift in migrant caravans
At first, the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador granted humanitarian visas to migrants and allowed them to pass through his country.
But by 2020,the caravans began to find less support from Mexicans.
"Among the Mexican public, the caravans became a representation of the lack of respect for the law," Ruiz Soto said.
The shift in public opinion came as the United States was beginning to pressure Mexico to further crack down on the caravans.
By 2023, the Mexican government maintained a policy of containing migrants in southern Mexico.
Guatemala too had begun to block the Honduran caravans from crossing the national territory.
The various caravans that still formed in southern Mexico or in Central America were contained or disbanded soon after setting out.
The caravans began to further decline in June 2023 after President Biden announced that migrants could only request asylum at points of entry.
More:'Migrants are not passing anymore': the 'Devil's Train' sees few migrants riding north
Migrants waiting to see what happens next
Trump's inauguration and immigration crackdown, launched earlier this year, brought further uncertainty for migrants across the hemisphere.
The abruptclosure of CBP One app on Jan. 20, the expanding deportations and the militarization of the U.S. border with Mexico led many across the region to think twice about seeking to migrate to the United States. Many migrants who were left stranded by the closure of the app beganreturning south toward their home countries.
But the northward flow of migrants has not completely stopped.
"Statements that there is no longer migration are lies, there is (migration occurring)," Juan José Hurtado, the director of the Guatemalan immigrant rights advocacy group Pop No'j, said. "The only thing is that this represents more costs and more risks."
The Trump administration's crackdown has made the trip more dangerous with migrants now facing increased risk of kidnappings and extortion, advocates say.
The cost for a migrant guide or smuggler are currently between $16,000 to nearly $20,000, as much as $5,000 more than it was three years ago, Hurtado and other advocates in Guatemala said.
Schacher, of Refugees International, has also heard of migrants paying smugglers as much as $20,000 for transit from Costa Rica.
The rising cost and uncertainty in the United States have most would-be migrants staying put, at least for now, said Hurtado, who works in the department of Huehuetenango in the western highlands of Guatemala.
"Their eyes are always set on the north," Hurtado said.
Changing migratory routes
With access to the United States mostly closed, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Ecuadorians, among others, are increasingly looking towards Spain or to a lesser extent, Germany, as their destination, Flores, the FLASCO Honduras researcher, said.
But Europe is only an option for those with the financial resources to get there. Those without resources, Schacher said, "are stuck, or they only have enough money to get back to where they came from."
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, and can be reached at:jdabbott@gannett.com;@palabrasdeabajoon Twitteror@palabrasdeabajo.bsky.socialon Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times:Policy changes have blocked migrant caravans from reaching US border.