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24 July 2024

US, Panama Mind the Darien Gap

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.

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