illegal immigration
Panama’s Incoming President Wants To Shut Down His Country’s Most Treacherous Route For Migrants — But Will It Work?
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.”
illegal immigration
Trump to declare national emergency on border, issue executive orders
From The Center Square
By
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, President Donald Trump said he will sign “a series of historic executive orders … to begin the complete restoration of America and the ‘Revolution of Common Sense.’”
The first action he will take will be to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, he said. Trump did not mention the northern border, which saw an unprecedented number of illegal crossings, record number of terrorists entering the U.S., and increased national security threats under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said. “We will reinstate my ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
Trump said he will designate Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The designation will also apply to violent transnational criminal organizations including the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, which is now operating in at least 22 states, The Center Square reported.
By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Trump will direct the federal government “to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” he said.
The act will be used to remove all cartel and gang members in the country illegally.
“As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said.
Trump is expected to issue 10 executive orders Monday to implement border security measures. They include ending the Obama-era catch-and-release policy Trump ended in his first term, which former President Joe Biden reinstated. The policy led to more than 14 million foreign nationals illegally entering the country, including more than two million who evaded capture known as gotaways under the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported.
Trump will reinstate a policy he created in his first term, Remain in Mexico, or “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP). It requires asylum seekers to wait outside the U.S. while their claims are processed. After the Biden administration sought to end it, Texas and Missouri sued. A federal judge ruled that ending the MPP was unlawful, The Center Square reported.
Trump will also direct federal agencies to finish building the border wall along the southwest border, completing a project he began in his first term. Biden halted border wall construction on his first day in office. Texas and Missouri again sued and won that lawsuit as well, The Center Square reported.policy
Another executive order will end parole programs for illegal border crossers created by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached in part for creating them. Multiple attorneys general sued to stop them, arguing they were illegal.
The parole programs, including using a phone app, facilitated illegal entry into the U.S. for millions, including those with criminal records. Many released through the parole programs were later found to commit violent crimes against Americans, The Center Square reported.
Another will direct federal efforts to “crack down on criminal sanctuaries,” referring to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. More than 200 were identified and already given notice to comply with federal law or face prosecution. Sanctuary cities expected to be targeted first include Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York.
Trump’s massive deportation efforts will be led by his Border Czar Tom Homan, who has said the priority is to find and locate the most violent criminals to process for removal.
Another executive order will suspend the federal so-called refugee resettlement program through which local communities nationwide “were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources,” Trump’s transition team said.
Trump will also direct members of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, to engage in border security operations, deploying them to the border to assist existing law enforcement personnel. According to a poll ahead of the election last year, the majority of Americans support U.S. troops being sent to the border, The Center Squarereported.
Another order will direct the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty for illegal border crossers who kill U.S. citizens, including law enforcement officers.
Last year, criminal illegal border crossers made international headlines after brutally assaulting and murdering American women and girls, The Center Square reported. Their mothers and family members endorsed Trump for president.
Another order will direct the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to enhance vetting and screening processes after national security concerns were raised about the Biden administration flying illegal border crossers into the country who weren’t vetted, The Center Square reported.
Daily Caller
Sweeping Deportations to Begin in Chicago Day After Inauguration
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to launch his promised large-scale deportation operation the day after he is sworn into office, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The incoming Trump administration will immediately begin mass deportation efforts in major sanctuary cities across the United States, with Chicago predicted to be first on the docket, according to The Wall Street Journal. The raid in Chicago is anticipated to begin Tuesday morning and last the entire week, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deploy 100 to 200 agents to execute the operation.
Incoming border czar Tom Homan — who led ICE during the first Trump administration — previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the White House will focus on the “worst first,” prioritizing illegal migrants who have criminal histories and orders of removal. However, Homan also made clear that any illegal migrant in the U.S is fair game.
“Like the first Trump administration, we’re going to prioritize public safety threats, national security threats and fugitives,” Homan stated to the DCNF, adding that gang members and other criminals would be their main focus. “Those that had due process at great taxpayer expense, were given orders of deportation, never left and became a fugitive – them too, they’re a priority.”
“The ones who pose the biggest threat to the country – they come first. The worst first,” Homan went on. “But let’s be clear, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
The Chicago City Council recently slapped down an attempt by two moderate aldermen to scale back the sanctuary city laws currently in place.
Aldermen Raymond Lopez and Silvana Tabares, both Democrats, proposed amending Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance to allow for ICE cooperation when an illegal migrant has been arrested of certain criminal activities, arguing that such a policy would be a net benefit for the city’s immigrant community as it would allow deportation officers to better focus on criminals instead of making enforcement actions in the city at large. However, their proposal was quickly shot down by the council on Wednesday.
Other sanctuary cities in the U.S. have also expressed steep opposition to Trump’s enforcement agenda. Los Angeles passed its sanctuary law shortly after Trump emerged victorious in the presidential election, San Diego County doubled down on its existing law and Boston reaffirmed its sanctuary status in December.
Homan has said that city officials refusing to cooperate with ICE will not deter their agenda, and he added that those who knowingly harbor illegal migrants from law enforcement will be recommended for prosecution.
Along with large-scale deportation operations, Trump has also vowed to end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents, resume construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, bring back the Remain in Mexico program and implement other hawkish policies.
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