Washington D.C. (February 3, 2022) – Thousands of migrants every week pass though Panama’s Darien Gap, a narrow jungle passage between Panama and Colombia, on their way north to the United States. In this week’s Center for Immigration Studies podcast, Parsing Immigration Policy, Chuck Holton, an author, war correspondent, and U.S. Army ranger who has lived in Panama since 2012, discusses the jungle migrant route, its impact on the indigenous tribes, and the Panamanian government’s role in assisting the global migrants on their journey to the U.S. southern border.
Migrants move through the Darien Gap – a roadless, triple canopy rainforest, which holds danger and death for many migrants. The migrant surge has been an economic boon for the Embera tribe in the Darien Gap, but has destroyed their way of life and has drawn many individuals into the human smuggling trade.
Holton describes what happens when the migrants exit the jungle. From that point the Panamanian government has become complicit in human smuggling through its “Controlled Flow Program”, through which migrants are transported to the Costa Rican border by bus.
Holton provides recommendations for how the United States can work with the Panamanian government to stem the flow of migrants heading to the U.S. border.
In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, discusses recent attempts by the U.S. government to conceal the release of large numbers of migrants in the dark of night and government sponsored flights to communities throughout the U.S. carrying migrant minors apprehended at the border.
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