In Record Numbers, Venezuelans Risk a Deadly Trek to Reach the U.S. Border

DARIÉN GAP, Panama — Olga Ramos trekked for days through the jungle, crossing rivers, scaling mountains and carrying a diapered child through mud so deep it threatened to swallow them whole.

Along the way, she fell several times, passed a disabled child having a panic attack and saw the body of a dead man, his hands bound and tied to his neck.

Yet, like tens of thousands of other Venezuelans traversing this wild, roadless route known as the Darién Gap, Ms. Ramos believed that she would make it to the United States — just as her friends and neighbors had done weeks before.

“If I have to make this journey a thousand times,” said Ms. Ramos, a nurse, speaking at a camp many days into the forest, “a thousand times I will make it.”

Ms. Ramos, 45, is part of an extraordinary movement of Venezuelans to the United States.

During the worst period of the crisis in Venezuela, 2015 through 2018, apprehensions of migrants at the southern border never passed 100 people a year, according to U.S. officials.

This year, more than 150,000 Venezuelans have arrived at the border.

Most have been inspired to make the harrowing and sometimes deadly journey as word has spread that the United States has no way to turn many of them back.