Costa Rica and Panama are coordinating to expedite southbound migrant transit through their countries along the same route that carried hundreds of thousands north in recent years.

Costa Rica and Panama are working together to facilitate southbound migrant transit. With the U.S. border closed, migrants head southward. New transit systems aim to avoid human trafficking. The plan includes organized transport for Colombians,

Officials in Costa Rica and Panama are confiscating migrants' passports and cellphones, denying them access to legal services and moving them between remote outposts as they wrestle with the logistics of a suddenly reversed migration flow.

Panama and Costa Rica are among a number of Latin American nations that have agreed to cooperate with U.S. President Donald Trump as he ramps up his deportation machine and restricts access to asylum in the U.

A group of families and children hailing from Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Russia and more climbed down the stairs of an airplane in Costa Rica's capital on Thursday, the first flight of deportees from other nations Costa Rica agreed to hold in detention facilities for the Trump administration while it organized