The text came from inside a Panamanian government outpost, on the edge of the Darien jungle. It was written by a migrant who’d managed to smuggle a cellphone into the facility by hiding it in his shorts.
He was one of the lucky ones. Most of the hundred or so other migrants who were being detained with him had no way to communicate with the outside world. They’d been sent to Panama as part of President Donald Trump’s high-profile campaign to ramp up deportations.
Three flights, carrying a total of 299 migrants, including children as young as 5, landed in Panama in mid-February. For the following three weeks, amid an international outcry over what critics described as a stunning breach of U.S. and international law, the migrants who had not committed any crimes were held against their will.
As public pressure on Panama mounted and immigrant advocates filed suit against that country, authorities there released the migrants — including Omagh — last weekend, on the condition that they agree to make their own arrangements to leave within 90 days. Their release has hardly settled matters, however, among groups that consider themselves part of the international safety net for migrants.
