Q24N (EFE) Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino announced last week the gradual closure of the immigration centers that have operated since 2016 in the Darién province, where hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants were served, due to a drop of up to 98% in the flow to the north, mainly the United States.
“We will not allow any more migrants in that area of Darién and we are closing an operation that began in 2016 (…) I am very pleased to have complied and closed Darién, with what this means for regional and Panamanian security,” Mulino declared during his weekly press conference.
These centers, the President explained, are the Bajo Chiquito and Canaan Membrillo centers, where Panamanian authorities, along with nearly twenty United Nations and NGO agencies, assisted migrants as soon as they left the dangerous Darién jungle, the natural border with Colombia and which also gives the Panamanian province its name.
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At the stations, migrants received food and medical services, and their biometric data was collected. Panamanian authorities have estimated the cost of this “humanitarian” operation at more than US$50 million.
“A year ago, we had 36,841 migrants crossing through Darién; so far in March, we reached 112. A significant decrease, which represents a 97-98% success rate on the part of Immigration authorities and the National Border Service (Senafront),” Mulino explained.
The migration operation in Darién began in 2016, during the first crisis due to the passage of 30,055 Cubans that year to the United States, according to the Panamanian National Immigration Service.
The numbers exploded starting in 2021, with 133,726 irregular migrants arriving in the Panamanian jungle province, 248,284 in 2022, and 520,000 in 2023.
In 2024, the flow fell by 300,000 migrants, which was attributed to the closure of jungle roads by the Mulino administration and fears of a tightening of US immigration policy if Donald Trump won the election, as ultimately occurred.
The Darien migration crisis of recent years was driven by Venezuelans, who accounted for more than 85% of the flow through the jungle.
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The new Trump administration’s mass deportations are discouraging migrants from entering the United States. Many are returning from Mexico, where they had spent months trying to obtain a legal route to US territory.
“The other flow, coming from the north, is beginning to rise. 961 people, 94% Venezuelans, have begun to descend from the north,” Mulino said this Thursday, apparently referring to figures corresponding to the entire month of March.
On March 7, Public Security Minister Frank Ábrego said that up to that date and since January 1, some 3,100 migrants had entered Panama from Costa Rica through regular crossings. But authorities believe there may be many more, as they are also entering through blind spots along the border.
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