EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Latin American nations accustomed to seeing their citizens migrate are taking on the role of host countries, as the U.S. shuts down its borders and individuals on the move look for alternatives.

These countries along the path to the north often share language and culture with migrants and generally respond humanely. But they aren’t prepared to integrate large numbers of newcomers into their economy, school system or health services network.

That needs to change as the Trump administration threatens to ramp up deportations that could put some of them in a bind, immigration experts said on Monday.

“A lot of the attention of the last several years has been at the U.S.-Mexico border and what other countries are doing or not to help the United States stop people coming from South and Central America and the Caribbean,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, policy analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Police Institute (MPI). “But only a fraction of attention is focused on what other countries are doing for migration themselves.”

MPI experts say as many as 18 million migrants are scattered throughout Latin America. That includes the estimated hundreds of thousands stranded in Mexico since President Trump shut down asylum on Jan. 20, and a much more numerous groups of Venezuelans who have moved just across the border to Colombia or a little farther to Chile.

“What’s changed is when Mexico and Central America come into focus, we think of deportations, removals – and that’s an important piece,” Ruiz said. “But it’s important to talk about how Mexico, for example, received the third-largest number of asylum requests in the world in 2022 and 2023 behind Germany and the United States.”

It wasn’t a smooth process, as evidenced by the throngs of people camped in southern Mexican cities like Tapachula or standoffs involving migrant caravans and overwhelmed Mexican National Guard troops.

Organization members on Monday discussed the latest migration trends in the region and the political uncertainty brought about by sudden changes in U.S. policy. Latin American leaders went from being recruited by President Biden to address root causes of migration to President Trump insisting they just take back their migrants.

That undermines trust among Latin American politicians and private sector partners when it comes to going along with the next great American international immigration initiative.

“With the Trump administration approving $170 billion for deportations for the next four years, the region must prepare. We cannot afford to have purely reactive policies once deportations ramp up,” said Diego Chaves-Gonzalez, senior manager for MPI’s Latin America and Caribbean initiative.

The experts said many nations in the hemisphere are “aging.” The median age in Mexico, for example, is 30.8 years compared to 24.8 years in Guatemala, according to the CIA Factbook.

Such older societies could benefit for increased migration – if they come up with a plan to integrate them, to see them as a solution for a shortcoming, instead of as a sudden crisis, experts suggest.