Right-wing influencers descend on the Darién Gap for migrants
Question recent arrivals then put footage online
METETI, Panama — Ayub Ibrahim had just walked out of the jungle. His feet still ached. A month earlier, he had left his home in Somalia, fleeing a civil war, he said, traveling first to Turkey, then Brazil, and finally crossing on foot through a 66mile expanse of wilderness known as the Darién Gap.
Resting in the sweltering San Vicente migrant camp in Panama with hundreds of other recent arrivals, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a halfdozen Americans with video cameras.
“Do you guys like Ilhan Omar?” one person asked. “What do you think about Joe Biden?”
Ibrahim, 20, answered the questions. He said he liked and admired Omar, the first Somali American to serve in Congress. He doesn’t follow US politics, he added, but thinks Biden is a good president. When asked if Biden or former president Donald Trump would be better for immigrants, he chose Biden.
Later, Ibrahim would say he had felt ambushed and confused by the questions. He hadn’t intended to make a political statement.
But by then, it was too late. One of his questioners, Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist and former Republican candidate for Congress, had already posted an edited video of the conversation online. It had rocketed around the internet, amassing nearly 2 million views on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The caption read: “Somali illegal aliens proclaim support for Ilhan Omar and Joe Biden inside Panama migrant camp!”
As immigration becomes a dominant issue in the 2024 presidential race, right-wing media has been awash in often deceptive videos of migrants emerging from the Darién Gap, a roadless stretch of Panamanian jungle that has become a bottleneck for thousands of people on their way to the United States.
The clips are presented as proof of what Republicans often describe as an “invasion” of Muslim terrorists, Chinese spies, and Latin American criminals. Posted widely on social media, the videos blame Biden for the migration and suggest, falsely, that Democrats are encouraging it to create new, illegal voters. International aid organizations are cast as profiteers making money off human misery.
The New York Times traced much of that content to the work of Michael Yon, a former Green Beret who over the past three years has become the go-to tour guide for right-wing journalists, politicians, and social-media influencers wanting to see the Darién Gap firsthand.
Those travelers have included, along with Loomer, Republican Representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin and Burgess Owens of Utah, reporters, producers, and podcast hosts for The Epoch Times, a right-wing newspaper, and correspondents for Real America’s Voice, the digital media company that hosts Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Videos and other content made by the visitors have come to serve as a kind of B-roll footage accompanying conversations about immigration on Fox News, Tucker Carlson’s online show, and for Trump himself.
On Friday, Trump reposted a video on Truth Social made by Loomer. It included several clips from her trip to Panama, including a snippet of her conversation with Ibrahim.
Critics warn that inflammatory coverage of these complex problems only serves to aggravate a humanitarian crisis.
“The misrepresentation of the migrants crossing the gap as invaders or illegals puts their life at risk,” said Sandie Blanchet, UNICEF’s representative in Panama.