Recently elected president of Panama José Raúl Mulino has announced that his administration will begin deporting people who cross through the treacherous Darién Gap, which has become a major route for migrants. The conservative lawyer who served as the Public Security Minister in the administration of Ricardo Martinelli between 2010 to 2014 and who ran for the presidency under the rightwing Realizando Metas (Realizing Goals) party had previously campaigned on closing the jungle route with the construction of a southern border wall.
Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Perú CC BY-SA 2.0
José Raúl Mulino during a 2014 meeting in Peru.
“Those who are down there [in South America] and those who would like to come, need to know that whoever arrives here is going to be sent back to their country of origin,” Mulino said on May 9 in a speech to the country’s electoral body following the certification of his victory. “Our Darién is not a transit route, no sir. It is our border.”
Ahead of the May 2024 elections, Mulino stated, “The border of the United States, instead of being in Texas, moved to Panama.”
In 2023, an estimated 520,000 people made the dangerous journey through the Darién Gap en route to the United States. The majority of those who made the journey in 2023 were Venezuelans, with migrants from Ecuador increasingly taking the route. So far in 2024, the number of children making the dangerous journey has increased 40 percent, according to UNICEF.
The increase of migrants from South America stems from the implementation of new visa regimes that force migrants to take longer and more dangerous routes. In April, Mexico began requiring Peruvians to obtain a visa prior to traveling to Mexico, after an uptick in Peruvian migrants flying through Mexico in order to be closer to the U.S. border. Mexico began to require new visas for Ecuadorians in 2021 following the increase of migrants from the South American country.
Flying to Nicaragua has become a means for many migrants from nations across Asia and Africa to avoid the dangerous Darién Gap route. Haitians also found a quicker route in 2023 when groups began to take charter flights to Nicaragua. Eventually, that route was shut down.
The United States has increasingly sought to target those who facilitate these routes, with the State Department placing visa restrictions on those who organize these routes. This also includes targeting those who move migrants through the Darién Gap.
“We’ve stepped up efforts against those preying on vulnerable migrants,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on May 7 in his brief statement at the beginning of the regional Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection summit in Guatemala City. “Yesterday we announced visa restrictions on executives of Colombian maritime migration companies who are facilitating irregular migration.”
Päivi & Santeri/Public domain
Jungle path in the Darién Gap on the Colombian side near Panamanian border.
But previous efforts to cut off the route have proven difficult. In 2023, Panama launched a joint operation with the United States and Colombia to stop migration through the dangerous sparsely inhabited region, but these efforts largely failed to slow migration through the jungle. Rather, the region saw the number of migrants risking their lives in the jungle surge to a record level.
“The U.S. visa restrictions really aren’t going to stop anything,” Yael Schacher, an immigration historian and director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, tells The Progressive.
“What would need to happen to stop Columbian maritime companies from transporting migrants would be for the Colombian government to prosecute them and to crack down on them,” she explains. “The United States cannot force Columbia to do that, and the Colombian government, for whatever reason, isn’t doing it, so the United States is responding with sanctions.”
As Panama moves to limit the use of the Darién Gap, the Biden Administration has announced the intent to further reform the United States asylum system. The proposed new changes would permit the immigration officials to reject those seeking asylum earlier in the process prior to going before an immigration judge.
The reform has caused concern for immigrant rights advocates.
“This regulation would increase the risks of erroneous denials of asylum seekers while making the asylum process more inefficient and inconsistent,” the American Immigration Council wrote in their fact sheet about the reform. “While it would likely apply to a relatively small population of asylum seekers, the proposed regulation would represent a step in the wrong direction.”
“This regulation would increase the risks of erroneous denials of asylum seekers while making the asylum process more inefficient and inconsistent.”—American Immigration Council
The move seeks to impede access to asylum in the United States. It would also put in place further barriers for migrants who have faced false accusations of or were forced into participating in criminal or terrorist groups.
As Schacher points out, these new requirements could especially affect migrants from El Salvador accused of being affiliated with gangs under President Nayib Bukele’s unprecedented war on gangs, which has been denounced by human rights groups. The new requirements could bar those who have been accused of gang affiliation from accessing asylum.
“The United States exchanges so much information with the Salvadoran government over gang related information and the Salvadoran government has accused so many young men of gang affiliation,” Schacher says. “I worry that they’re going to be screened out early, even if they were just accused and not convicted in El Salvador.”
The Darién Gap has become the preferred route that has become utilized by other nationalities, including migrants from China, India, and migrants from West Africa, immigrating to the United States. The new measure could limit asylum cases of those migrants who have utilized routes such as the Darién Gap or through Nicaragua before they enter the United States.
While it is impossible to say what the outcome will be, Schacher says these changes are meant to gain control over the extra-contentianal migration route.
“This effort is to get control or to try to stop extra-continental migrants from using these routes in order to come from seeking Asylum at the U.S. border,” she explains. “I don't know what’s going to happen, but I do think . . .that’s what this is sort of geared towards—cutting off that route—especially for extra-continental migrants.”
She adds, “I think this bar at the border was especially to alleviate fears that any of the extra-continental migrants would make it through [all the barriers].”