The first flight of deported migrants from Panama landed in Medellin on Tuesday with 28 Colombian citizens on board, including an alleged member of the Clan del Golfo, all with criminal records and detained after having crossed the jungle that connects the two countries. The flight, according to Panamanian authorities, is the beginning of a new – and toughened – strategy by the Government of José Raúl Mulino to reduce the unstoppable flow of people who enter the inhospitable Darien Gap, the vast majority with the United States as their final destination. However, Migración Colombia has described the event as “routine.”
The flights are being launched just months before the November presidential election in the United States and are part of an agreement between officials from both countries after Mulino took office less than two months ago. They also mark a new way of addressing migration, which has become a thorny issue in the campaign between former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The passage of migrants across the jungle border between Colombia and Panama – a steep and slippery terrain with fast-flowing rivers – has become a large-scale humanitarian crisis. Venezuelans, Haitians, Ecuadorians and Colombians, but also migrants from other continents such as Asia and Africa, risk their lives on these dangerous routes, exposed to all kinds of abuses by criminal groups, as documented by various human rights organizations. The crossing along the once impregnable route has broken all records in recent years. More than 130,000 migrants, mainly Haitians and Cubans, crossed in 2021. The number jumped to 250,000 in 2022, with an increase of Venezuelans and Ecuadorians. And more than half a million people ventured there last year, most of them Venezuelans – up to 60%, according to Panama – which makes the scenario even more complex in the face of the post-electoral crisis in Venezuela, which could lead to new waves of migration.
In 2024 alone, more than 230,000 people have passed through the border, and so far in August the number has already exceeded 8,000 cases, according to the director of the Panamanian National Migration Service, Roger Mojica. According to the official, the agreement with Washington allows the deportation of all people who enter Panama irregularly, and not just those with criminal records. In other words, all those who cross through the Darién. On the Colombian side, the Clan del Golfo, the largest drug trafficking gang, dominates migrant trafficking, which provides it with millions of dollars in resources. On the Panamanian side, Mulino has insisted on the idea of “closing” the Darién since the very campaign that brought him to power. His chemistry with the neighboring government of Gustavo Petro will largely be determined by how to address the massive flow through the inhospitable jungle that separates the two countries.
The new president’s plan, with obvious regional implications, comes up against the thorny challenge posed by the Venezuelan diaspora. Panama recently broke relations with Venezuela, after Mulino was one of the first leaders to question the victory granted by electoral authorities to President Nicolás Maduro without presenting any credible evidence. The airspace between the two countries is closed, making it impossible to deport Venezuelans to their country of origin. Colombia, for its part, is by far the main host country for this exodus.
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“With this first flight, the memorandum of understanding on illegal migration signed by the governments of Panama and the United States on July 1 is being implemented,” the same day Mulino was sworn in, the Central American country’s presidency explained in a statement. In the text, it insisted that “the agreement establishes that the United States will cover the cost of the deportations that Panama needs to carry out to counteract the illegal trafficking of migrants through the Darien jungle.” It also noted that for the following flights, which will be announced in the next few days, talks are already underway with Ecuador and India. Washington has committed to financing the deportations with six million dollars.
The Colombian immigration authority, however, has lowered the volume of the Panamanian announcement. “These flights have been served since 2016 and bring only Colombian citizens,” said Migración Colombia, detailing that it received 121 compatriots in 2022, 378 in 2023, and 365 so far this year. “This procedure is part of the bilateral agreements between Colombia and Panama, and is carried out in strict compliance with national and international regulations on immigration matters,” it stressed about an operation that it considered “routine.”
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