The US will pay for migrants’ flights out of Panama to close a route used by over 700,000 people to reach the US-Mexico border

The funding will involve the US paying for flights out of Panama and “supporting training and capacity building to strengthen and institutionalize safe, humane repatriation processes,” the statement said.

The amount allocated to these flights, provided by the State Department, was not announced.

The Associated Press reported that the new deal will see the US paying for charter and commercial flights to return migrants to their home countries.

It cited two senior administration officials who were not named, who also said Panama would choose who is repatriated based on its laws.

This agreement, signed by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, comes as Panama inaugurates its new president, José Raúl Mulino.

It will see Panama closing off the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of rainforest that at least 520,000 migrants walked through in 2023 on their way north. Another 174,000 people were recorded using the route this year.

The corridor, regularly plied by cartels and paramilitary forces, starts in Colombia and ends in Panama. It typically takes about 5 days or more of arduous trekking to finish the 66-mile journey.

Several popular exit points from the Darién Gap are staffed by humanitarian agencies such as Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, who provide medical aid and essentials to the migrants but are increasingly overwhelmed by a growing influx of trekkers.

The Panamanian government has typically not repatriated migrants who enter the country via the Darién Gap, but it’s been managing some infrastructure to house them as they pass through.

Once in Panama, many migrants continue their journey through Central America, crossing at least five transnational borders to reach Mexico and eventually making their way to the US southern border.

US border patrol encounters with migrants in the southwest hit record highs in December, with over 301,000 incidents logged. Nearly 2.5 million migrant encounters were reported in the 2023 fiscal year, and this year’s numbers are on track to hit a similar level.

Authorities already struggle to manage the Darién Gap

Yet closing the Darién Gap is no small feat. In April 2023, the US and Panama launched a 60-day campaign to curb illegal migration from the corridor.

In June of that year, Panama assigned 1,200 immigration agents, border police, and naval air service members to target criminal groups that guide and exploit migrants traveling through the Darién Gap.

Hundreds of thousands still used the crossing afterward.

Mulino, Panama’s new president, has vowed to solve immigration issues in the country. He announced on his first day in office that the country would no longer be “a path open to thousands of people who enter our country illegally.”

Illegal immigration has increasingly come under the spotlight in US politics, particularly for Republican leaders who have accused the Biden administration of allowing border security to grow lax.

On June 4, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation that temporarily restricts entry for non-US citizens who enter through the southwest border illegally. His campaign highlighted that border officials’ seven-day encounter average dropped 40%.

But managing the immigration crisis is proving to be a delicate political and economic balancing act. Biden previously came under fire from progressives for referring to a Venezuelan migrant charged with murder as “an illegal.”

Several analysts also say immigrants have helped relieve a labor shortage in the US and that overly aggressive deportation programs, such as the one suggested by presidential candidate Donald Trump, would risk stagnating the economy.