Cuban-led caravan en route to Mexico City as Trump policies deter migrants from US

A migrant caravan of more than 1,000 people is marching north across Mexico – but they’re not headed for the US amid President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. 

The migrants – at least 1,200 in total – are heading towards Mexico City in search of better work opportunities than they have back home, which for most in the caravan is Cuba, Fox News reported. 

That destination is a shocking change from what was seen over four years of former President Joe Biden’s administration, when massive migrant caravans marched across Central America to the US border and added the 8 million-plus people who flooded the country.

4

4

And it’s not just this caravan that’s reset its sights from the US for Mexico – about 50% of migrants encountered across Mexico since Trump took office in January said their destination was not the US, but Mexico, according to Fox. 

4

That number is up from 25% in 2024 who said they weren’t headed for the US, a study from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP) found.

“This suggests that increased US border enforcement and deportations are influencing migrants’ choices, with more seeking asylum and work authorization in Mexico instead of continuing to the US,” CEFP senior director Elaine Dezenski told Fox.

That shift follows the White House’s hardline stance on illegal immigration, which has resulted in around 10,000 border encounters per month since Trump took office again in January – down from the hundreds of thousands regularly encountered during Biden’s watch.

4

Under Trump, border encounters have even dropped to their lowest levels since the 1960s, the Migration Policy Institute recently found.

Migrants’ attitudes about the US as a welcoming destination seems to have followed suit.

“Why would I want to go to the United States? They hate us there,” one Cuban migrant travelling with her kids told the Spanish outlet El Pais.

The Cuban caravan departed from Tapachula, one of Mexico’s southernmost towns on the Guatemalan border.

It will likely take weeks to reach Mexico City, and members are using social media to urge local leaders to issue them residency and work permits, Fox reported.

One of the caravan’s primary concerns is gang violence and poverty that’s persisted in their home countries and in Mexico’s south.