US, Panama Mind the Darien Gap
They are natural allies in the fight to curb migration.
By: Allison Fedirka
The Darien Gap – once considered little more than a narrow, impenetrable jungle along Colombia’s border with Panama – has slowly become one of the most heavily traversed migrant routes this side of the Atlantic.
New Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has announced plans to shut the passage down to curb unauthorized immigration and asked Washington to help.
This kind of bilateral cooperation illustrates how the pressures brought by migration are shaping regional relationships and, in some cases, driving countries apart.
For Panama, stemming the flow of migration through the Darien Gap is a matter of security and economics.
The gap has been a hotspot for illicit activity since well before the government began tracking the number of people who used it for migration.
And when it started to do so in 2010, the number was negligible.
Those who used the gap tended to hail from Haiti and Cuba.
Since 2021, however, annual migrant flows have skyrocketed, largely because of the exodus of Venezuelans leaving their country.
The more migrants pass through the gap, the more sophisticated the routes become.
As a result, criminal groups are thriving such that the Darien Gap is used more by criminal groups for operations and transport than by migrants seeking work in the north.
Panama – a country of just 4.4. million residents – simply cannot afford to absorb the hundreds of thousands of migrants that traverse the gap every year.
And even if it had the resources to halt migration on its own, it would risk upsetting its neighbors.
This explains why Panama reached out to the U.S. for help.
For its part, the U.S. has every reason to oblige.
Panama’s stewardship of the Panama Canal, its utility in ensuring Caribbean security and its position along the land bridge between North and South America are strategically irreplaceable.
Economically, Panama facilitates bicoastal commerce in the U.S. and trade to Asia, and is a strong candidate for critical nearshoring efforts as the U.S. changes up its supply chains.
The U.S. has also tried (but failed) to get Panama to better police the transit of sanctioned goods.
Put simply, a stable and happy Panama is vital to Washington’s interests.
As important, the U.S. shares Panama’s concern over increased migration flow through the Darien Gap.
Many migrants are bound for the U.S., which worries that criminals, terrorists or other agents of espionage could hide among the economically displaced.
Cooperating with Panama, then, reflects Washington’s preferred strategy for addressing migration.
Many countries of origin have called on the U.S. to adopt an approach that addresses the economic and security root causes of migration.
Translation: They want Washington to inject billions of dollars into economic development projects.
The U.S. has been hesitant to pursue this kind of strategy because it takes too long to see results, assuming the funds were properly deployed.
Instead, it wants to focus on a policy of deterrence that involves active security forces at the U.S.-Mexico border, the repatriation of migrants themselves and working with regional partners to restrict passage, particularly at key bottlenecks like Darien Gap.
Consequently, one of Mulino’s first moves in office was to have Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas sign an agreement to that end.
The agreement would have the U.S. financially responsible for repatriating migrants back to their respective countries of origin and would call on the U.S. to train Panama to evaluate and identify which individuals to repatriate in a way that complies with local laws.
The agreement complements other measures Washington has recently taken to help stem the flow of migrants.
For example, earlier in 2024 the U.S. issued visa restrictions for executives and high-level officials in chartered transportation companies that aid illegal migration, particularly maritime transit ones originating in Colombia.
It also issued best-practice guidelines to charter companies, encouraging them to take responsibility and help reduce transit.
Notably, nothing in the agreement addresses the physical prevention of passage through the gap.
The agreement banks on the idea migrants won’t want to risk repatriation after spending their life’s savings on the journey.
In truth, Panama has no choice but to adopt a strategy of deterrence: Terrain and geography may not be impossible to overcome, but they nonetheless present extremely difficult challenges to any large-scale security operation, and the Panamanian security services aren’t equipped for such an operation anyway.
Still, there are reports that barbed wire has been laid along portions of the border that Panama’s National Border Service plans to block, including passages on the coast migrants would use before they enter the jungle, and redirect the flow to Bajo Chiquito, the first town migrants reach after crossing the Darien jungle.
Just as migration flows affect downstream countries, moves to restrict migration flow tend to impact upstream countries.
In this, Colombia and Venezuela will bear the brunt of U.S.-Panama cooperation.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has already criticized the moves, which he deemed risky, saying they could result in more fatalities.
He also called on countries to pursue economically oriented development strategies rather than punitive strategies to curb migration.
His response shouldn’t be surprising; over the past few years, Colombia has been ground zero for Venezuelan migrants, which now number roughly 3 million.
Naturally, it’s a politically expensive and socially fraught issue, and there are concerns that things will only worsen after Venezuela holds elections at the end of July.
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