The Plight of Migrant Venezuelan Families in Panama
Between survival and the uncertainty of return
By Leiny Perez (La Estrella de Panama)
HAVANA TIMES — Outside a Panama Metro station, a woman holds a small box of mints. She doesn’t block the flow of people. She doesn’t insist. She discreetly extends her hand while watching her two children, a four-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. The noise of the city moves on without pause, doors opening, hurried footsteps, loud conversations, engines, announcements. She remains.
She asked that her identity not be revealed. In this chronicle we will call her María. She is Venezuelan, originally from the coastal region. She left her country pushed by a combination of factors that, in her words, “made daily life impossible to sustain”: income that was no longer enough, difficulty obtaining food and medicine, unstable services, and the constant feeling that any plan could collapse within weeks.
She arrived in Panama two years ago with relatives and acquaintances. Before setting foot in the city, she crossed the Darien jungle, a journey she describes as exhausting, uncertain, and marked by fear.
She came with a clear idea: “Work. Start over.” The reality was different. “We have to sell candy… whatever comes up for the day.” She speaks without dramatizing, like someone describing an accepted routine. “Sometimes we do well. Sometimes we don’t.”
For years, Panama was a transit territory within one of the continent’s most intense migration routes. The Darién jungle became a human corridor crossed by thousands of stories marked by urgency.
In 2023, 520,085 people crossed the jungle, according to the Ministry of Public Security. Of that total, 328,667 were Venezuelan and nearly 120,000 were minors.
In 2024, although the flow decreased, 300,000 migrants crossed the same route. The majority were still Venezuelan. But the dynamic changed abruptly. Between January and February 2025, only 2,637 people crossed the Darien irregularly, a drop of nearly 96% compared to the same period the previous year. Ninety-five percent came from Venezuela.
The jungle ceased to be the human highway it once was. Stations, avenues, and traffic lights began telling another part of the story.
Living day to day
Maria does not speak about routes or state decisions. She speaks about the present. “I’ve looked for work, but without a permit it’s complicated.”
She used to work as a secretary in Venezuela. In Panama she tried to find jobs in cleaning, customer service, and domestic work. “They always ask for papers.” She adjusts the box of mints and looks at her children. “Here you live day to day.” She counts coins. Calculates how much she needs to sell to cover food. “It’s not what you plan… but it’s what you have to do to survive.”
The drop in Darien crossings did not mean the end of migration movements. It only transformed their direction.
Throughout 2025, a phenomenon that international organizations are already monitoring in the region began to become visible: “reverse flow,” or return migration.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the term describes the movements of people who, after trying to continue their journey northward across the continent, decide — or are forced — to move back toward Central and South America. It is not a simple return. In many cases, it is a return burdened with economic losses, emotional exhaustion, and new vulnerabilities.
Panama began recording it. By December 2025, the country had counted 22,325 entries linked to these movements during the year. 3,974 occurred in the last quarter. Most were Venezuelans. Many were traveling as families.
Inside a city bus, Ricardo — a fictitious name to protect his identity — boards with a backpack slung over his shoulder, filled with candy he hopes to sell that day. He greets people politely. Offers sweets. Gives thanks even when no one responds.
He is the father of three children. His story did not begin in Panama. He left Venezuela several years ago. He crossed borders, worked temporary jobs, moved between countries searching for stability. He made it to Mexico. He tried to continue north but couldn’t.
“Everything got complicated there.” He describes months marked by a lack of formal job options, difficulties normalizing his migration status, and growing economic pressure.
“There came a point when continuing was no longer viable for us.” He decided to go back. He arrived in Panama in January 2025. “It wasn’t easy to accept that we had to turn around.” He tries to find work in construction, cleaning, or services.
Today, he says, returning to Venezuela is not part of his plans. His priority is to remain in Panama, obtain a migration status, and obtain documents and permits that would allow him access to stable employment.
“You can have a lot of education, but without documents it’s like you don’t know how to do anything.”
Stories linked to return migration repeat patterns. Interviews conducted by UNHCR in Panama during 2025 show that these movements are increasingly family-based. In the last quarter of the year, 385 people interviewed allowed the situation of 671 family members to be assessed. A significant portion were children and adolescents.
Records also warn of less visible situations: births that occurred along the route that had not been registered with any national authority. Children without documentation. Families trapped between administrative systems.
The street as routine
In one of Panama City’s busiest areas, among shop windows, cafés, and hurried footsteps, a Venezuelan family discreetly arranges their merchandise: candy, cookies, bottles of water.
They don’t beg. They sell. They requested anonymity. Here they will be Carolina and Miguel. They left Venezuela after months of facing insufficient income, rising prices, and difficulties sustaining their household.
Panama appeared as a nearby alternative, “more stable,” “with more opportunities.” “We thought that coming here, everything would be easier,” Miguel admits.
They tried to get jobs but ran into the same obstacle: they lacked permits and documents. Housing became another challenge. “Rent was out of our budget.” Since then, they have combined temporary stays with acquaintances, nights in low-cost boarding houses, and long days on the street.
Their son stays close, giving away smiles with the innocence of someone who still does not understand reality. “We do everything possible to maintain normality in front of him,” says Carolina. Miguel nods. “It’s been the hardest thing we’ve had to do.”
Unlike other migrants who chose to remain, the couple acknowledges they are considering the possibility of returning to Venezuela. They do not describe it as a decision made, but as an idea that emerges between nostalgia, exhaustion, and uncertainty.
The reasons for leaving repeat themselves. Most of the people consulted by UNHCR cited the search for employment, insecurity, family reunification, and the need for better living conditions. The journey itself was not neutral. Seven out of ten migrants interviewed reported having suffered mistreatment or abuse during the trip, including episodes of extortion, threats, or violence.
Panama today faces a different migration reality: less irregular transit through the Darién, more precarious urban permanence, more families trying to sustain themselves in the informal sector.
It is estimated that more than half a million Venezuelans reside in the country among migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The State has adopted administrative measures, including the temporary extension of the validity of expired Venezuelan passports. But the document does not guarantee employment. Nor housing. Nor stability.
Formal return is not without obstacles either. In December 2025, a voluntary repatriation flight to Caracas, scheduled to transport 70 Venezuelan citizens, had to be rescheduled due to incomplete paperwork, according to Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha. Even legal departures face delays.
Despite the recent political scenario in Venezuela — including the capture of President Nicolas Maduro by United States armed forces in January 2026 — return does not figure among the immediate plans of many migrants consulted. Even with changes in political leadership, nothing has changed for them, and the possibility of returning remains distant.
Between stations, buses, and avenues, the stories gathered share common points. Not only nationality. Also waiting. Forced adaptation. The daily search for minimal income. Between the statistic and the face, Venezuelan migration has ceased to be only a transit figure and has become a constant presence in Panama’s urban everyday life. The numbers help measure the phenomenon, but they do not fully explain what happens when the day ends — when a family decides where to spend the night, how to divide what little they managed to gather, or what to do with a future that remains suspended.
Three different stories, but crossed by the same cracks: forced informality, endless waiting, uncertainty as routine. Like them, many other families share similar silences, days sustained by minimal calculations, and nights marked by the question that never disappears: how much longer can we endure?
In the city that for years was a place of passage, many now inhabit a prolonged pause — a pause made of uncertainty, resilience, and silent survival.
First published in Spanish by La Estrella de Panamá and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.