illegal immigration
Panama’s Incoming President Wants To Shut Down His Country’s Most Treacherous Route For Migrants — But Will It Work?
![](https://www.todayville.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/tvrd-dc-panama-president-jose-raul-mulino-illegal-immigration0-darien-gap-image-2024-05-14.jpg)
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Panama’s new president-elect is pledging to close a key corridor used by hundreds of thousands of migrants en route to the U.S., but experts and Panamanians aren’t so sure it can be done.
President-elect Jose Raul Mulino handily won the Panamanian presidential election earlier in May, riding a wave of voter discontent over the country’s slow economic growth and an endorsement from a popular former president. The 64-year-old lawyer also campaigned on a pledge to end the illegal immigration that runs through the tiny Central American nation’s Darien gap — but some question the feasibility of that pledge, given the vastness of the jungle, the cartels that populate it and the sheer amount of migrants flowing through it.
“While President Mulino’s promise to close the Darien Gap to migrants appears to be made in good faith, it’s unclear how he could ever actually deliver,” Matt O’Brien, director of investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The region consists of thousands of square miles of jungle that are virtually impossible to police.”
“And the gap itself is already home to massive migrant assistance operations that are funded by politically-potent, anti-borders groups from all over the world,” O’Brien added. “None of these organizations are likely to close up shop and go home without a fight.”
The number of illegal immigrants crossing the Darien Gap is incredibly massive — and rising. More than half a million migrants passed through the region in 2023, double the nearly 250,000 that had crossed the year before, according to the Council of Foreign Relations.
“The border of the United States, instead of being in Texas, moved to Panama,” Mulino said on the campaign trail. “We’re going to close the Darien and we’re going to repatriate all these people,” referring to a vast jungle region across Panama and Colombia known as the Darien Gap.
The pledge has received notable coverage from American media, and the Secretary of State’s office made mention of anticipated cooperation on the issue shortly after Mulino’s election victory.
The Darien Gap, however, is roughly 40 miles wide and 100 miles long, with a combination of rainforests and mountains and virtually no government presence, according to the Guardian. Hiking through the region can take days.
The area is also under the de facto authority of drug-trafficking organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Gulf Clan paramilitary group, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The groups are known to extort and sexually assault travelers who pass through the region.
The idea of closing off the Darien has long been regarded as too much of a burden to accomplish, given these factors.
“Panama closed their border,” Wisconsin GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany said in 2021 after a trip to the Darien Gap. “But they, in effect, can’t because of the incredible crush of migrants that are coming from all over the world.”
More recently, Juan Pappier, the Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch, framed Mulino’s promise to close the Darien Gap as “virtually impossible.”
The majority of migrants crossing the Darien Gap are Venezuelan nationals, but people from Ecuador, Haiti and other African and Asian countries also utilize these routes to make it to the U.S. border.
Panamanians have made notice of the enormous flow of migrants crossing their country on a daily basis.
“It’s impossible to not run into a foreigner who is begging for money or puts their child in front of you to beg for money, or sell you chewing gum or candy,” Allan Baitel, a born-and-raised Panamanian citizen, told the DCNF. “We have a lot of individuals who are present on the streets at all times, 24 hours a day with signs asking for help.”
Baitel noted that the government is “doing its best” to mitigate disruptions to daily Panamanian life by getting the migrants off the street and moving them to the border of Costa Rica. While he acknowledged the difficulty in closing up the Darien Gap, he expressed optimism over Mulino’s background.
“It’s going to be very hard to close the gap, very difficult,” he said, noting that Colombia was unlikely to help in the effort. Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, has long been hesitant to adopt measures to physically bar migrants from entering the jungle, claiming that a more humanitarian approach should be taken.
“Let me tell you that Mulino’s background is in security,” Baitel said. “He has preparation in having to deal with a lot of these issues, so he may have something up his sleeve.”
Currently, the Panamanian government’s policy has been to immediately bus incoming migrants to the Costa Rican border, allowing them to carry on in their U.S.-bound journey. In a recent radio interview, the incoming president said most would-be migrants would simply not even try to cross Panama once he begins deporting them.
“Because when we start to deport people here in an immediate deportation plan the interest for sneaking through Panama will decrease,” Mulino said in the radio interview. “I assure you they are going to say that going through Panama is not attractive because they are deporting you.”
For many Panamanian citizens, the crisis hasn’t made much of a personal impact on them since the vast majority of the migrants are quickly moving on and out of the country.
“We don’t see that many, no one wants to stay here. They want to get to the shining city on the hill,” said Surse Pierpoint, a third-generation Panamanian who spoke to the DCNF.
Pierpoint said that the topic of immigration doesn’t even crack the “top five” issues that matter to him at the moment. Like many other voters, Pierpoint cited the tough economic times the country has faced and he liked Mulino’s agenda for the private sector.
Panama, once the top performing economy in Latin America, has struggled with credit downgrades, slow economic growth, less foreign direct investment and the closing of a major copper mine. The president-elect campaigned on a pledge to bring life back into the private sector with a pro-market agenda.
As for closing the Darien Gap, Pierpoint has doubts: “I don’t know how he can do that frankly,” he said. “It sounds good, but I don’t see how it’s feasible in the short term.”
While so much attention has been focused on Mulino’s ability to close the migration routes himself, policy experts in Washington, D.C,. and locals in Panama alike also pointed the finger back at the Biden administration. The crisis taking place in this Latin American isthmus, they say, begins and ends at the White House.
“Panama president-elect Jose Mulino’s pledge to close the Darien Gap route that migrants are traversing on their way to the U.S. southern border demonstrates the far-reaching negative consequences of Pres. Biden’s immigration policies,” Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, said to the DCNF. “This is a humanitarian crisis entirely of President’ Biden’s making, and Panama is just one of the countries dealing with the fallout.”
“All of this has to do with the United States,” Baitel added. “It will not cease until there’s a very drastic change in the United States.”
Crime
Venezuelan Migrant Says She’d ‘Return’ To Country After Living In Housing Taken Over By Venezuelan Gang
![](https://www.todayville.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/tvrd-dc-venezuelan-gangs-take-over-appartments-denver-image-2024-09-07.jpg)
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
A Venezuelan immigrant living in migrant housing in Aurora, Colorado, appeared to fight back tears while speaking to independent reporter Nick Shirley, saying she would return to her country after living in the U.S.
This week, the city of Aurora faced major pushback from Republicans after footage surfaced online of armed men inside an apartment complex in late August. Shirley was seen visiting various migrant housing units before stopping at the viral location to interview residents where the armed men had been spotted.
Shirley spoke with a Venezuelan woman who showed him the poor living conditions her family endures, stating she pays $1,200 per month for the apartment. The migrant stated that the electricity and hot water in her apartment weren’t working, telling Shirley that the landlord hadn’t accepted any payment for the “past couple of months.”
“Does your father still have to pay rent?” Shirley asked as they walked around her father’s apartment.
“The owner is no longer receiving any kind of payment, because he is also taking all this, that the gangs and the mafia are taking advantage of all of this to get us out as if we were dogs and it’s not fair,” the migrant stated, according to a translation.
Shirley asked if gangs had been charging people, to which the migrant replied, “no.” The independent reporter then asked if her life in the U.S. was what she expected after crossing the border.
WATCH:
“No, never. I would have stayed in my country. They say that here everything is different, the laws, everyone gets a good job, you get ahead, you can save money to take back to your country,” the migrant stated. “But not everything is as they say, the American dream is simply just a dream. When you get here you wake up, it’s not like they say.”
Shirley then pressed the migrant, asking in Spanish if she would take a “flight or opportunity to go back” to her home country.
“With all the love in the world I would return to my country,” the migrant said.
Republican lawmakers on Friday sent a letter criticizing the Biden-Harris administration’s “open border policies” and local “sanctuary” policies over the reported presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which allegedly terrorized several apartment buildings in Aurora.
Reportedly beginning as a prison gang in 2014 within the northern Venezuelan state of Aragua, Tren de Aragua has grown into one of Venezuela’s largest criminal organizations. With around 5,000 members and stretching internationally across Latin America and the U.S., the gang has allegedly been connected to several high-profile crimes within the U.S., including the kidnapping and strangling of a Florida man last year.
This week, the Aurora Police Department announced the arrest of two confirmed Tren de Aragua gang members, Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos and Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirinos, following a July 28 shooting that left two men hospitalized with serious injuries.
illegal immigration
Illegal immigrants crossing from Canada into USA in record numbers
![](https://www.todayville.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/tvrd-cs-illegal-immigrants-crossing-canada-us-border-champlain-ny-image-2024-09-02.jpg)
Illegal border crossers from Canada captured near Champlain, NY – US Border Patrol
From The Center Square
By
Apprehensions in 10 months surpass previous 13 fiscal years combined
The busiest U.S. Customs and Border Protection sector at the northern border continues to break records in apprehensions with foreign nationals coming from 85 countries to Canada to illegally enter the U.S.
In less than 10 months, Swanton Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended 15,000 foreign nationals from 85 countries who all illegally entered the U.S. through Canada, the greatest volume reported in this time period in recorded history.
By contrast, the Swanton Sector apprehended 365 illegal border crossers in all of fiscal 2021, according to CBP data.
The total number apprehended this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, exceeds apprehensions Border Patrol agents made in 13 fiscal years combined (fiscal 2011 through fiscal 2023), Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said.
The 15,000 illegal border crossers is equivalent to 15 U.S. Army battalions.
Foreign nationals flew from 85 countries to eventually reach Canada and then make their way to the U.S. border, where they illegally entered the Swanton Sector. The sector includes all of Vermont, six upstate New York counties, and three New Hampshire counties.
Illegal entry by car in Alburgh, Vermont.
It spans 295 miles of international boundary with the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and is the first international land boundary east of the Great Lakes.
In fiscal 2023, Swanton Sector Border Patrol agents broke previous records by apprehending the greatest number of illegal border crossers in history of more than 6,700 foreign nationals from 76 countries, The Center Square exclusively reported.
In just one year, that number tripled and countries of origin increased to 85.
Foreign nationals illegally entering the U.S. from Canada in the Swanton Sector alone are citizens of Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Anguilla, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungry, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Liberia, Lithuania, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Togo, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, according to Swanton Sector data.
![TCS border crisis northern border sqanton sector](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=150%2C107 150w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=200%2C143 200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=225%2C161 225w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=300%2C214 300w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=400%2C286 400w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=540%2C386 540w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=640%2C457 640w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=750%2C536 750w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=990%2C707 990w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C739 1035w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/thecentersquare.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/b8/eb8b6bb4-6891-11ef-aff7-7f54866cf622/66d4ba11e9184.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C857 1200w)
A border patrol agent at the northern border in the Swanton sector
The Biden-Harris administration continues to maintain U.S. borders are secure and numbers are down compared to the Trump administration, a claim fact-checked as false by The Center Square.
In one Derby, Vermont, local news report, residents described how “at all hours of the day,” illegal foreign nationals cross their backyards having come from Canada to illegally enter the U.S. They’ve shared similar experiences on a much smaller scale as those living in rural border counties of Texas, The Center Square has reported. In Texas, illegal border crossers total in the millions under the Biden-Harris administration, prompting 55 Texas counties to declare an invasion and 60 to issue disaster declarations citing the border crisis.
Like those at the southwest border, those at the northern border describe how home surveillance video captures foreign nationals trespassing on private property, next to their homes, in the middle of the night to be picked up by someone nearby. Border Patrol agents have warned residents “not to interfere because they may have weapons. They want to get through, they’re going to have nobody stopping them,” WCAX 3 News reported.
They are describing gotaways, those who illegally enter between ports of entry, don’t make asylum or immigration claims, and intentionally seek to evade capture. Many have criminal records and are armed and dangerous, authorities have told The Center Square. They total at least two million nationwide since fiscal 2021, the greatest number in recorded history, The Center Square first reported.
While the Swanton Sector has borne the brunt, the entire northern border has reported record illegal entries and apprehensions, totaling 162,865 so far this fiscal year. That’s after the greatest number of nearly 190,000 was apprehended at the northern border in U.S. history in fiscal 2023, according to CBP data.
Illegal entries continue to skyrocket at the northern border as both U.S. and Canadian officials have expressed alarm about terrorist threats, The Center Square reported.
Nearly 1,100 known or suspected terrorists attempting to enter the U.S. from Canada were apprehended at the northern border since fiscal 2021 by CBP and Border Patrol agents. Nationwide, the total number of KSTs apprehended since fiscal 2021 is over 1,700, the highest on record, The Center Square first reported.
Despite some Canadian officials telling The Center Square, “The Canada-U.S. border is the best-managed and most secure border in the world,” members of Congress, U.S. officials and some Canadian officials don’t agree.
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