It’s the Trump turnaround.
Groups of migrants once bound for the US are throwing in the towel and heading back where they came from after the Trump administration moved to seal off the southern border, authorities said Monday.
The migrants are being forced to halt in their tracks and return south — homeward bound — “due to increased border security” after President Trump ended the previous Biden administration’s risky “catch and release” program, deployed additional troops to the border and commenced a mass deportation effort across the nation, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said on X.
Trump also forced Mexico to deploy 10,000 of its own troops to the border to help battle the crisis after threatening to impose a 25% across-the-board tariff.
Last week, authorities in Honduras discovered a group of 26 migrants from Venezuela and Cuba “traveling south back to Nicaragua” and another group of 23 others from Honduras, Venezuela, Panama and El Salvador “turning back from Mexico,” according to Banks.
“These individuals cited the heavy security posture along the U.S.-Mexico border and Mexico’s containment efforts as key reasons for reversing course,” Banks wrote.
“Families in these groups made a life-saving decision, avoiding the dangers of cartel-controlled territory, where extortion and violence are rampant,” the former Texas border czar added.
“Our enforcement efforts are working.”
The Trump administration has essentially taken a “zero tolerance” to migrants even claiming asylum, sources said.
The number of migrant encounters at the southern US border plunged to 303 Sunday, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
That daily figure had been in the thousands under Democratic former President Joe Biden.
The number of migrants in Border Patrol custody has also plummeted by more than 500% since the summer, according to leaked figures obtained by The Post.
Border agents were holding roughly 1,500 illegal migrants in custody last week, compared to more than 10,000 in June.
USBP
The developments come as ICE agents continue carrying out Trump’s mass deportation effort across the country, with the agency recently discovering the presence of more Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua members in two new states: New Hampshire and Missouri, according to a Homeland Security source.
“Known Tren de Aragua gang member” Jesus Elicio Tapa-Colina was arrested in St. Louis on Wednesday after he allegedly took part in an assault, authorities say. Colina was released into the US after crossing the southern border into El Paso, Texas, last year.
ICE also nabbed accused Tren de Aragua gangbanger Ronald Jose Reyes Ollarvides, who has a prior robbery conviction, in Manchester, NH.
