Visa rules in Mexico don't stop Venezuelans headed to US

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When Mexico imposed a visa requirement on Venezuelans in January, it briefly had the desired effect: The number of Venezuelans detained at the U.S.-Mexico border plunged. But it’s now clear that it only pushed the migrants onto more dangerous clandestine routes.

Suddenly unable to simply fly to Mexico as tourists, but still desperate to leave their country, Venezuelan migrants joined others traveling over land through the dense, lawless jungle on the Colombia-Panama border.

In 2021, when Venezuelans could still fly to Cancun or Mexico City as tourists, only 3,000 of them crossed the Darien Gap — a literal gap in the Pan-American Highway that stretches along 60 miles (97 kilometers) of mountains, rainforest and rivers. So far this year, there have been 45,000, according to Panama’s National Immigration Service.

“If they can’t arrive at Mexican airports, they’re arriving by land through the Darien,” said Adam Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America. From there it’s just series of stops: in southern Mexico, the remote middle of the Mexico-U.S. border and then a final destination in the U.S., usually on the East Coast.

Such visa requirements can stop some migrants — the pace of Brazilians and Ecuadorans slowed after Mexico imposed them last year — but not others, Isacson said. “It has to do with the level of desperation,” he said.

Venezuela’s economy has collapsed under a combination of mismanagement and U.S. sanctions. The minimum wage for public employees has fallen to the equivalent of $2 a month. Monthly salaries in the private sector average $75. Some of the Venezuelans arriving in the U.S. now, left Venezuela years ago, spent time in other countries and are moving north now.

In December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained...