Exclusive Interview: Panama Border Security Chief Says Many U.S.-Bound Terror Suspects Caught in Darien Gap Region

From the Center for Immigration Studies

The bad news: The migrant flood prompted by Biden-Harris policies means only a tiny fraction can be checked

PANAMA CITY, Panama — In April 2022, the American public finally heard the sound of national security alarms about the U.S. southern border, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection began publishing, on a monthly basis, the numbers of FBI watch-listed terrorists caught illegally crossing (a record-breaking 378 from FY2021 through July 2024).

But what most Americans do not know is that many more terrorism suspects en route to the U.S. border could be added to that alarming number, except these ones were caught in Panama coming out of the notorious Darien Gap jungle, pulled off the migrant trails, and never accounted for in CBP’s public data reports.

New official information about these additional terrorism suspects interrupted on their way to the American border comes by way of an exclusive Center for Immigration Studies interview with the chief of Panama’s National Border Service (SENAFRONT), Director General Jorge Gabea, at agency headquarters just off the Panama Canal.

Asked to comment about SENAFRONT’s reported August arrest of three Afghan terror suspects whose biometrics were taken and checked at a Darien Province immigrant reception station (described in the SENAFRONT tweet below), Gabea responded that the report was “not fake”.

Se detecta a través de acciones de perfilamiento y pruebas biométricas a tres terroristas afganos y a tres colombianos con antecedentes criminales en la Estación Temporal de Recepción Migratoria de Lajas Blancas en Darién.#CentinelasDeLaPatria pic.twitter.com/xvnaMyBjOX

— SENAFRONT PANAMÁ (@senafrontpanama) August 3, 2024

Three Afghan terrorists and three Colombians with criminal records are detected through profiling actions and biometric tests at the Lajas Blancas Temporary Immigration Reception Station in Darién. #CentinelasDeLaPatria

“We did take and profile a few members of a terrorist cell from … Afghanistan,” he said. “We linked and we profiled them to be members of an active cell. They were members of a Salafist group, and they had links with different activities.”

But then Gabea added that this was far from a one-off.

“We have many stories of that. We don’t just have one. We have many stories of that, from Somalia, from Yemen … from Syria, from Africa.”

Gabea would not put a number on the “many stories”.

But for all those good-news stories of short-circuited U.S. border-crossings by known terrorist suspects, he also suggested that the record-breaking flood hundreds of thousands of migrants a year from 150-plus nations that began pouring through the Darien Gap from Colombia in 2021 has severely hampered the very counterterrorism screening programs that catch them and get them off the trails early.

”3 Percent in This Moment” — The Broken Counterterrorism Dam. I knew exactly what Gabea was talking about. Following a previous trip to Panama in 2018, I produced reporting about those counterterrorism programs. This was several years before the historic mass migration event that the Biden-Harris administration would unleash starting in 2021. (See 2019 video below.)

Since 2011, SENAFRONT has worked closely with in-country FBI and DHS agents on counterterrorism programs that use U.S.-provided equipment to collect migrant biometrics like fingerprints and photos and run them through terrorism databases looking for positive hits before the foreign nationals move on north.

But SENAFRONT’s director general indicated that so many began coming through the gap during the historic mass migration to the U.S. border that Central American authorities are scarcely able to screen even a fraction of them.

“Maybe at this moment … we can check like 3 percent and, in the worst moment, 1 percent,” Gabea told me. “We don’t have the capability to screen everybody.”

So many are coming that agents on the ground are left to “profile” immigrants for priority collection and checks, probably meaning if they are young men from Muslim-majority nations. But eyeballing always eludes perfection.

”Throughout the Years, We Were Catching a Lot … Hundreds.” This profound reduction in coverage to 1 percent or 3 percent in Panama stands in contrast with a 90-percent rate of screening immigrants in the country when the program started in 2011, when flows were usually well under 10,000 per year.

This is according to Edward Dolan, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent who worked deeply with these programs while later serving as DHS’s Regional Attache for Central America in the U.S. embassy in Panama City. Dolan retired from service in 2019 but still lives and works in Panama, where I met with him in a coffee shop.

“Throughout the years, we were catching a lot” of watch-listed terrorists, Dolan told me. “From like 2015 to 2019, it was hundreds.”

But checking the 550,000 immigrants that crossed in just 2023 and almost 250,000 so far in 2024?

“That’s insurmountable,” Dolan said. “I can’t imagine trying to manage what they have now.”

Dolan said those low screening rates in Panama help explain the record-high number of terror suspects getting caught and counted illegally crossing the U.S. border.

“All you have to do is look at what’s being reported at the southwest border and then go back and look at the numbers in 2019 [zero] and 2020 [three],” Dolan said. “That tells the story itself.”

Delayed Counterterrorism Responses from Colombia to Texas. So many are coming in through the Darien Gap, Gabea confirmed, that “active terrorist” migrants are sometimes mistakenly freed to proceed to countries north before biometric information submitted in Panama produces a positive hit.

A red flag goes out then, of course, and with a little luck, “they take them from the migrant flow”, Gabea explained, for interviews with American and local agents, the eventual deportation to “their official port of entry. Maybe it’s in Africa. Maybe it’s Bosnia. We return them to their previous position.”

Clearly, however, many are too long gone and don’t get caught until they hit the American border, if ever. On August 5, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued an interim report revealing that since January 2021, CPB released into the United States “at least” 99 border-crossing immigrants who were on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist database.

The entire multinational counterterrorism net now stands reduced in capability, and the bad guys know it, Dolan said.

“If you’re a terrorist,” he said. “this is how you’re going to come to the United States.”

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation’s only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.

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Woman Allegedly Burned Alive On Train By Illegal Migrant Finally Identified

Published on January 1, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

Local law enforcement said they finally identified the woman burned alive while riding on a New York City subway car earlier in December, ending days of public speculation.

Debrina Kawam, a 61-year-old woman from Toms River, New Jersey, is the individual who was burned alive while riding the F train in Brooklyn on the morning of Dec. 21, the New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The man charged with the attack is Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year old previously deported Guatemalan national who is living in the United States unlawfully.

After days of law enforcement failing to identify the victim and no apparent family or friends coming forward, some speculated that the victim may have been homeless. The NYPD on Tuesday gave no further details about Kawam beyond her name, age and home address.

The gruesome details of the attack sparked national media coverage, and once again spotlighted the issue of illegal migrant crime in the U.S.

Investigators believe Kawam was sleeping on the train when Zapeta walked up to her and used a match to light her clothes on fire, which quickly became fully engulfed in flames. The illegal migrant then allegedly remained on scene, sitting on a bench platform, to watch her die from her injuries.

“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim who was in a seated position at the end of the subway car,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated during a press conference shortly after the incident. “The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.”

Local police who were on patrol at an upper level of that train station went to investigate after they smelled and saw smoke, according to Tisch, who described the attack as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit” against another human being. Upon their arrival to the scene, officers discovered the victim standing in the train fully engulfed in fire, and made attempts to put the fire out.

Zapeta was apprehended by the NYPD later that day after witnesses had spotted him, and he was caught with a lighter in his pocket. It was later revealed that, while Kawam was on fire, he allegedly intentionally fanned the flames by waving a shirt over her.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson confirmed to the DCNF that Zapeta is an illegal migrant who had already been deported from the country years prior.

“U.S. Border Patrol in Sonoita, Arizona, encountered Zapeta June 1, 2018, and served him with an order of expedited removal and Enforcement and Removal Operations removed Zapeta from the U.S. to Guatemala June 7, 2018,” the agency stated to the DCNF. “Zapeta unlawfully reentered the United States on an unknown date and location.”

The Guatemalan national has since been charged with first and second degree murder and arson. He is due to be arraigned on Jan.7, 2025.

Crime

Venezuelan prison gang crime, arrests confirmed in 22 U.S. states

Published on December 31, 2024

Todayville

Surveillance photos, Gateway Hotel, El Paso County Attorney’s Office

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Of the more than 14 million illegal border crossers reported under the Biden administration, an unknown number of violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members illegally entered the country.

Now, police records and official law enforcement statements confirm TdA-linked crime and arrests have occurred in 22 U.S. states.

They include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. TdA activity also has been reported in the District of Columbia.

TdA is known for violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking and are linked to more than 100 law enforcement investigations nationwide. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is currently looking for 600 suspected TdA members and “subjects of interest” illegally in the U.S., NBC News reported.

While TdA is likely operating in nearly all U.S. states, local police reports and official public statements have yet to confirm this. Federal and state agencies have issued bulletins to law enforcement partners on how to identify TdA members.

In the West: TdA members have been arrested in Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, The Center Square reported. In New Mexico, federal agents arrested TdA fugitives wanted for capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in Texas.

Multiple crimes have been committed by illegal border crossers in California, including residential burglaries allegedly committed by Colombians and Chileans involved in a South American theft group (SATG), The Center Square reported. While several social media reports appear to confuse TdA with SATG, police reports have yet to confirm TdA affiliation with SATG crimes.

Border Patrol and other federal agents in Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico and Texas continue to arrest TdA and other violent gang members.

In the Midwest: TdA members were arrested for violent crimes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin, with law enforcement officers in Ohio involved in a multi-state ATM theft investigation, The Center Square reported.

TdA members were arrested this year for the first time in North and South Dakota and in Missouri, prompting state and federal lawmakers to demand answers and introduce legislation, The Center Square exclusively reported.

In Gulf states: TdA members have been arrested in Texas and Louisiana. In Louisiana, they’re tied to a multi-state sex trafficking operation involving smuggling women into the U.S., holding them in stash houses in Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia, and forcing them into prostitution, authorities found, The Center Square reported.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott declared TdA a foreign terrorist organization and state and local law enforcement are actively working to target and eliminate them in multiple operations.

TdA crime in Texas is linked to a multi-state investigation into an ATM bank robbery scheme, sex trafficking rings and other violent crimes.

In the Southeast: TdA members were arrested in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, charged with multiple felonies. In North Carolina, law enforcement officers arrested a TdA lieutenant and fugitive wanted by Interpol on terrorism related charges. In Tennessee, TdA members were arrested in a sex trafficking ring operating in multiple states. Tennesee’s attorney general argues federal agents are releasing “murderers and rapists from its migrant detention facilities onto American streets,” The Center Square reported.

In the Northeast: TdA members were arrested in New Jersey and New York for a slew of violent crimes, including a recent murder in Connecticut. Arrests are for multiple felonies including fugitives wanted in their home countries, The Center Square reported.

Several on social media appear to confuse SATF with TdA. Some claim SATG robberies targeting NFL and NBA players in Michigan and Minnesota are TdA when no confirmed TdA arrests have been reported.

Although TdA has established a stronghold in Colombia, Chile and Peru, authorities have yet to confirm TdA affiliation when making SATG announcements. Many investigations are ongoing and SATG culprits remain at large.

SATG operatives target wealthy neighborhoods, burglarize homes and quickly leave the scene. TdA operatives entrench themselves in migrant communities, perpetrate human trafficking, forced prostitution, aggravated assault and murder, among other violent crimes.

The underlying commonality is they illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration and are identified as top targets for removal by the Trump administration.