The Darién Gap continues to be the primary route for hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to reach the United States, according to the observers of the dangerous land route that connects Panama with South America.
The United Nations office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that in 2023 more than 330,000 migrants have crossed through the jungles of the Darién Gap, a historic level of migrants. August alone broke all records, with around 50,000 people taking the week-long trek through the jungle that separates Panama with Colombia, which for many is viewed as the easier part of the journey.
The Darién Gap continues to be the primary route for hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to reach the United States.
“The real fear [for migrants] is not about the Darién as much anymore, but the fear is enforcement later on towards the U.S. and Mexico border,” Yael Schacher, the Director for the Americas & Europe with Refugees International, tells The Progressive.
As migration through the Darién Gap continues, international organizations such as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, or UNICEF, have raised concerns with the number of children passing through the dangerous route. According to the organization, an estimated 40,000 children passed through the route in 2022.
Milenioscuro, CC BY-SA 4.0
Map of the Darién Gap.
Since 2021, the Darién Gap has increasingly become the primary route for migrants traveling north, with nearly 250,000 migrants—primarily from Venezuela but also Haitians, Colombians, and Ecuadorians—taking the route. But migrants, especially from Haiti and Cuba, have been using the route since at least 2016.
Panama has accused neighboring Colombia of not doing enough to stem migration through the dangerous passage. In April 2023, the United States, Panama, and Colombia had agreed to crack down on the networks that assist in the movement of migrants through the dangerous route. But efforts to control the route by breaking up the smuggler network that currently operates in the region could have serious blowback.
“If [governments] actually do take out a bunch of smugglers and [they] end up fragmenting whatever monopoly exists without filling it with state presence, you can make it more dangerous for the migrants,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) tells The Progressive. “Because it's going to be a criminal free-for-all again.”
In September, Panamanian authorities announced new measures to crack down on migrants, announcing they will be targeting migrants who take the Darién Gap route, increasing the number of deportations, building new installations at the border, and increasing requirements for those who seek to stay short-term.
“We will increase these deportations so that the required impact is felt,” National Immigration Authority Director Samira Gozaine said on September 8 during the announcement of the new measures.
Päivi & Santeri/Public domain
Jungle path in the Darién Gap on the Colombian side near Panamanian border.
But migrants fleeing violence and the impacts of climate change, as well as those migrating in the hopes of economic opportunities and seeking asylum, have been pushed into taking the route because of the implementation of new visa regimes in countries further north.
Previously, migrants could fly into Mexico, which did not require visas from most South American countries, and then travel by bus to the border. However, beginning in 2021, the United States pressured Mexico and Guatemala to change visa requirements to enter Mexico and Guatemala, meaning that this safer route was cut off and migrants were forced to take the more dangerous route.
“They could fly to Mexico, which was not requiring visas for most South American countries,” Isacson says. “But the United States leaned hard on Mexico to stop allowing that. Now, [migrants] from every South American country that was doing this (except for Peru and Colombia), can still fly to Mexico—but Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela in particular, cannot. Unless Mexico somehow gives them a visa ahead of time, but that is very hard to get.”
The longer journey now means that migrants can find themselves trapped in the countries between the United States and Panama, as the cost of transiting the region can be extremely high. On September 11, Guatemala authorities stated they once again saw a sharp increase in migrants stranded in bus terminals, with the police detaining around sixty migrants and returning them to the Guatemalan border with Honduras.
As migrants continue to stream north through the Darién Gap, the United States-sponsored Safe Mobility immigration offices launched in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala continue to process requests from refugees, efforts at family reunifications, and applications for certain work visas. They also deal with various humanitarian programs.
“Asylum requires that you get to U.S. soil,” Isacson says. “And that requires you to go through the Darién [gap], into all of Central America, and all of Mexico, and be preyed upon by everybody along the way. So it makes all the sense in the world to have better access [to asylum].”
Colombia opened their offices in Medellin, Cali, and outside of Bogota. In August 2023, the first month of opening, the Colombian centers received an estimated 28,000 requests for an appointment to seek asylum.
Launched in June 2023, the pilot program in Guatemala initially received 18,000 solicitations from migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, with only 1,300 requests being permitted into the interview process for the Safe Mobility program. But according to a report from Prensa Libre, the program was temporarily suspended, and when the program reopened, it now only receives requests from Guatemalans.
“How long will people wait?”—Yael Schacher
The program doesn’t reach all those who need access to safe ways of migrations, especially Ecuadorians, and extra-continental migrants. And results are slow in coming and questions remain too.
“The question is how long will people wait?” Schacher asks. “If they can’t gain access, they will just go [North].”