If you are having trouble viewing this message, go here: [link removed]

Defending the Rights
of Migrants in Panama
March 2024

During the week of March 11, Quixote Center and its partner, the Red Franciscana para Migrantes ([link removed]), organized and accompanied a delegation to Panama made up of experts and activists from Witness at the Border, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Las Americas, American Immigration Council, and Human Security Initiative. The group traversed the entire country to understand and encounter the migrant experience, beginning with the Darien Gap jungle.

The Darien is a treacherous, mountainous, dense jungle without roads that connects Colombia and Panama. The migrants, asylum seekers, and local Panamanians we spoke with described rampant sexual violence, extortion, robbery, and murder in the Darien jungle. Many migrants, including a child, reported seeing dead bodies. One family watched a man collapse to his death in front of his wife after armed bandits shot him. Migrants told us they needed to depart their home countries due to violence, political persecution, threats to their life or the lives of their family, or lack of economic opportunity. Some are traveling to reunite with family members.

We learned that migration is expensive. We were told that people can purchase guided passage through the jungle from organized criminal groups, if they have the money, for about $400 to $1200 per person. The trek takes three to four days. Yet more charges await migrants as they exit the jungle. Those who can afford the $25 fee can take a boat from the jungle to the small indigenous village of Bajo Chiquito (those without money pass by foot). From there, another $20 fee buys passage to a government-operated reception center. Migrants then must pay $60 to $100 per person (plus an exorbitant fee to a middleman who retrieves electronic money transfers via Western Union) for bus passage directly to Costa Rica. However, many cannot afford the bus fee, including migrants who were robbed of all their belongings in the jungle, and must wait days or weeks in crowded and unsanitary conditions, with no means of earning or raising the money. Frustrations among those stranded in the reception centers, unable to pay for buses, has led to palpable tensions between migrants and immigration officers.

In desperation, some attempt to traverse Panama by foot. But they face new challenges: since 2022 it has been illegal for private citizens to assist migrants in Panama. The government also prohibits churches and NGOs from setting up overnight shelters for migrants passing through the country, so they are forced to use the government reception centers.

Still, we encountered pockets of humanity in a dehumanizing context. One community along the road provides food and hygiene kits for migrants passing through. The Panama Team of the Red Franciscana, along with its partners in Red CLAMOR ([link removed]), provide a range of services, including a shelter for migrants with urgent medical treatment needs, and advocacy with the Panamanian government to protect their human rights.

The Panamanian government receives support and funding from the United States to manage migration through its territory. In the coming weeks we will produce a detailed report with policy suggestions.

*Signed,
Kim Lamberty, Executive Director, Quixote Center
Thomas Cartwright, Witness at the Border
Karla Barber, Witness at the Border
Margaret Cargioli, Immigrant Defenders Law Center
Julia Neusner, Human Security Initiative
Jennifer Babaie, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center
Crystal Sandoval, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center
Adriel Orozco, American Immigration Council
Heidi Cerneka, Maryknoll Lay Missioner and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

*Signatures for Organizational Affiliation Only

Forward to a Friend:
[link removed]
Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

Email Privacy Policy:
[link removed]

Update Profile:
[link removed]

PO Box 1950 Greenbelt, MD 20770