Panama Steps Up Plans to Halt Migrants

U.S. 'border is actually here,' says President Mulino of the Darién Gap

- SANTIAGO PÉREZ

CAÑAS BLANCAS, Panama—In a small tropical forest valley close to the Colombian border, the soldiers of Panama’s militarized border patrol are busy building fences.

Their mission: Close off jungle trails that human smugglers used to ferry 520,000 migrants last year on their way from South America to the U.S. via the treacherous Darién Gap—a 70-mile stretch of jungle without roads, electricity or industry.

The initiative is part of a broad push by Panama’s pro-American president, José Raúl Mulino, to tackle border security and mass migration since he was elected last summer. One of his first acts as president in July was an agreement with the U.S. for funding to deport migrants crossing the jungle. He is hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will continue U.S. support for Panama’s efforts to control immigration.

“We want the Trump administration to realize that its border is actually here at the Darién Gap and to see how complicated that area is,” Mulino said in an interview. While migration flows have fallen sharply this year, they can quickly rise again, he said.

During a historic surge of northbound migration in recent years, human traffickers opened new paths through the Darién Gap, a rainforest so impenetrable that efforts to colonize it and build roads through it were never successful. Once migrants trekked through the jungle, they would be taken by bus through Panama to Costa Rica and so on. Many governments along the way provide transportation to the next border to move them.