I’ve been documenting social issues for forty years and photographing the lives of Central American migrants for the past thirteen. I’ve never thought my journalism would solve anything; I want to believe it’s enough to listen to people’s stories and share them, to let people know that someone cares.

In September 2025, I returned to Casa Tochan, a shelter for migrant men in Mexico City that I’ve reported on for several years, to see how life has changed since the United States drastically altered its immigration policy.

I met Jhony Anderson Rojas Guerra working in Casa Tochan’s small kitchen. It was clear he was a chef by the way he handled a knife to chop cilantro. As we talked, he proudly showed me photos on his phone of himself in a double-breasted chef’s jacket, taken when he had worked on cruise ships. “I traveled the world,” he told me.

He also worked in restaurants in his native Venezuela, liking the work but not the pay. “One restaurant paid $40 a month for twelve hours a day, five days a week. The other paid $80 a month. It’s not possible to live on that – you can only survive.” At the time, demonstrations against president Nicolás Maduro had become common in Venezuela. Rojas Guerra participated in the protests that broke out after the contested 2024 election, an activity that could have led to imprisonment or worse. When he learned that a couple of his friends had left the country and were living legally in the United States, he considered joining them.

At the time, through a program called CBP One (Customs and Border Protection One), migrants staying in Mexico used an app to request an interview which would determine if they’d be allowed to enter the United States. When I visited Tochan in January 2024, seventy men were staying there, most of them hoping to enter the United States legally. The shelter only has forty-eight beds, so men were sleeping on mats in any available space. The wait could be a couple weeks or several months, but three of the men I interviewed on that visit were finally given permission to enter. Everyone else said the wait was worth it because they believed it was only a matter of time before they’d also be living in the United States.

When Rojas Guerra learned that another friend had filled out CBP One and entered the United States just two weeks later, he decided it was time to leave Venezuela. He arrived at Mexico’s southern border on October 22, 2024. “I was sure I could enter the United States,” he told me. “I came with a purpose: to work a few years and send money to my mother so she could buy the house she was renting.”

He completed CBP One in late October and, like all migrants in Mexico who don’t have legal status, worked in the informal economy while he waited. Then, on January 20, 2025, the Trump administration cancelled CBP One entirely, including all scheduled interviews. “I was angry,” said Rojas Guerra, “because it was done for political reasons.” CBP One has been replaced with CBP Home, a program that offers financial incentives for undocumented migrants living in the United States to self-deport.

When I returned to Tochan this September, there were only forty men staying there. Now that they have no viable legal way to enter the United States, fewer people are crossing Mexico’s southern border.

Franklin (not his real name) was an attorney in Venezuela and a member of an opposition party.

He defended some of the people arrested during anti-government protests, which put him at risk of being arrested himself. So he fled Venezuela and did what he was supposed to do to enter the United States legally: he completed the CBP One application in June 2024 and waited.

“I never got an appointment,” he said. When the program was cancelled seven months later, he told me, he felt “sadness, frustration.” He also said there were times he felt so desperate that he considered crossing the border illegally. Fear held him back.

Previously, many migrants would pay a coyote (trafficker) to smuggle them across the border. Few are doing that now. “Things have changed,” said Gabriela Hernández, the shelter’s director. “First, because more coyotes work with cartels. It’s much more dangerous than before – super dangerous. Before, when migrants paid, they were taken across the border. Now, there is no guarantee they will arrive. There are more kidnappings, more disappearances.” It’s also much more expensive. Maricela Reyes, a social worker, told me coyotes now charge $15,000, up from $9,000 a couple of years ago. Besides, according to Jorge Antonio Rocha, a shelter worker, “There’s no reason to pay a coyote because the border is completely sealed.”

For now, Franklin has decided to stay in Mexico.

Javier Banderas is a rarity at Tochan: he’s Mexican. He told me his story in an even, quiet voice, his hands shaking slightly. He lived and worked in the Unites States for twenty years and was a legal resident living in Washington state. He married a US citizen and bought a house. “I had the American dream,” he said. He lost it when he got a parking ticket during a visit to Los Angeles in April 2025. When he left the courthouse after paying the fine, “I saw about fifty federal officers. They were dressed in black, wore masks, and did not identify themselves. Everyone who looked Mexican or Latin American was grabbed.” He explained he was in the country legally and offered to show them his ID. He was told to show it to the judge and was taken to an ICE facility where, he said, there were no beds; people slept on the floor. He waited a month for a court date and, when it arrived, was asked if he wanted to fight or voluntarily deport. He said that because he was a legal resident, he wanted to fight.

So he was held in detention for another three months. “I was treated well,” he admitted. “And the food was good. But there was a lot of stress.” Despite proving that he was in the country legally, he was deported, arriving at Tochan in early September. “What they did was very unfair,” he said. “I am not a criminal. I was paying taxes. In return, I was kicked out.” He plans to stay a while in Tochan. “I’m taking time to relax and clear my mind, time to recover emotionally.” He’ll probably rejoin his extended family in Chihuahua. When I asked if he’d consider returning to the United States, he was adamant. “I have no intention whatsoever of going back.”

Now that it’s extremely difficult and expensive for migrants from Latin America to enter the United States legally, the majority of the men I spoke with said they were planning to apply for refugee status in Mexico, something that can take a year or more. There’s a huge backlog of cases. Between 2013 and 2024, there were 575,214 refugee requests. Of those, only 202,990 (35 percent) were resolved, with 134,960 migrants (23 percent) granted refugee status.

“Mexico is now a country of destination,” said Reyes, the social worker, “but an involuntary one. Our current focus at Tochan is helping the men find employment, whatever they need to do to stay in Mexico. Nobody can guarantee it will be better here. There is little economic security. Here in Mexico City, there is no unskilled work that pays well and no affordable housing.” Most of the men were working in the informal economy and almost all were getting paid less than a Mexican would receive for doing the same job.

Reyes added that the dream of entering the United States never dies. “If you ask forty-five men here if they still want to go to US, forty will say yes.” Vicente Amaya, a Salvadoran, is one of the few who would say no. “I will not go to the US,” he told me. “There are better people in Mexico.”

Rojas Guerra, the Venezuelan chef, plans to apply for refugee status but is unsure if he’ll stay in Mexico long-term. “Maybe I will go to Canada,” he said. “Maybe Europe.” He also might return to Venezuela to help care for his mother. But he still clings to the hope of getting into the United States one day. “Perhaps next year things will change. Hope is the last thing to die.”