Panama’s President-elect moots closing ‘transit’ migration route
Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border.
President-elect José Raúl Mulino says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 5,00,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north.
Whether Mr. Mulino is able to reduce migration through a sparsely populated region with little government presence remains to be seen, experts say.
Reclaiming border
“Panama and our Darien are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mr. Mulino said after his victory with 34% of the vote in Sunday’s election was formalised on Thursday evening. He will take over as President on July 1.
As he had suggested during his campaign, the 64-year-old lawyer and former Security Minister said he would try to end “the Darien odyssey that does not have a reason to exist.”
The migrant route through the narrow isthmus grew exponentially in popularity in recent years with the help of organised crime in Colombia, making it an a ordable, if dangerous, land route for hundreds of thousands.
It grew as countries like Mexico, under pressure from the U.S. government, imposed visa restrictions on various nationalities including Venezuelans and just this week Peruvians in an attempt to stop migrants ying into the country just to continue on to the U.S. border.
Established path
But masses of people took the challenge and set out on foot through the jungleclad Colombian-Panamanian border.
A crossing that initially could take a week or more eventually was whittled down to two or three days as the path became more established and entrepreand neurial locals established a range of support services.
Risky route
It remains a risky route, however. Reports of sexual assaults have continued to rise, some migrants are killed by bandits in robberies and others drown trying to cross rushing rivers.
Even so, some 1,47,000 migrants have already entered Panama through Darien this year.
Previous attempts to close routes around the world have simply shifted tra¤c to riskier paths.
“People migrate for many reasons and frequently don’t have safe, orderly legal ways to do it,” said Giuseppe Loprete, chief of mission in Panama for the UN’s International Organization for Immigration.
“When the legal routes are not accessible, migrants run the risk of turning to criminal networks, tra¤ckers and dangerous routes, tricked by disinformation.”
Meeting with Mulino
Mr. Loprete said the UN agency’s representatives in Panama would meet with Mr. Mulino’s team once its members are named to learn the specics of the president’s plans.