Panama & Costa Rica Becoming 'Black Hole' for Migrants, Experts Warn

The governments of Costa Rica and Panama are restricting border entry by taking away the passports and cellphones of migrants, moving them between different remote stations, and preventing them from seeking legal aid while grappling with a newly reversed, but perplexing, influx of migrants.

The measures and lack of information are coming under fire from human rights defenders and generating more and more exasperated reactions from the authorities, who claim to do it for the migrants’ own safety against human trafficking.

Both nations had already received hundreds of deportees from various countries which the United States has been sending as part of President Donald Trump’s “deport em’ all” strategy. At the same time some thousands of migrants without entry to the US have started to move south. Central America has so far recorded 2,200 migrants in Panama in the February.

“We’re simply slaves of the US immigration policy,” said Harold Villegas-Romn, political science professor and refugee specialist at the University of Costa Rica. “It's entirely devoid of any consideration for human rights and is purely myopic and focused on excessive control and security. Everything is very foggy, and opaque.”

Reversing deportation and migration divide. 

Earlier this month the US sent 299 deportees mainly from Asian countries to Panama. Those who decided on a return about 150 so far were placed in aircrafts with the help of the United Nations agencies and at the expense of the United States. 

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Deportation proceedings have been initiated against over two hundred Venezuelan migrants from Guantanamo Bay utilizing overland routes through Honduras. 

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh. 

Indian emigrants are being deported by the US government to the Panama with some questions regarding 'What is the matter?'. 

Carlos Ruiz-Hernandez, Panama’s deputy foreign minister, said Thursday a small number are in contact with international organizations and the UN Refugee Agency, as they consider whether or not to apply for asylum in Panama.

Nobody wishes to reside in Panama. They wish to travel to the United States, he stated during a telephonic interview from Washington. While we cannot offer them green cards, we can certainly assist in their return home and, as a measure, furnish them with medical and psychological care alongside shelter for a limited time.

Trump’s claims to resume control of the Panama Canal aside, he stated that Panama has not acted out of pressure from the United States. This serves the national interest of Panama. We are a partner of the United States and would like to collaborate with them in showing resolve.

According to Ruiz-Hernandez, some of the deportees who will remain in Panama will be given the possibility of shelter at a place which was initially designed to accommodate the big volume of migrants traveling north through the Darien gap.

One “undocumented Chinese” deportee who is currently being detained at the camp, spoke on the grounds of anonymity because she did not want to face any consequences, stated that she wasn’t presented with a choice at all.

She was among the deportees moved to a remote camp at the Darien region from a Panama City hotel. Some people had placed signs on their windows asking for help. She had no clue where she was being sent. She did not sign any deportation documents in the US, nor did she have any idea how long she would be staying there. 

In one of her messages to the AP, she mentioned that her authorities had taken other people’s phones, and further offered no legal help. The other option, as other people stated, is that they are completely unavailable to reach their lawyers.

She said, this took away our legal options. 

When questioned by reporters about the lack of legal services, on Thursday, Putin Jose Raul Mulino expressed his skepticism about migrants having access to lawyers. 

Don't you find it absurd that those homeless people would have lawyers over in Panama? Said Mulino 

A black hole for deported immigrants 

Thus far, Costa Rica and Panama have denied access to journalists in the places where migrants are being housed. The reporters from Panama were invited to see Darien facilities but were reportedly disinvited.

A Panama is not a black hole where deported migrants vanish, said Juan Pappier, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Americas. Panama needs to ensure that migrants have access to their families and lawyers, and that there is clear information on their status. 

Similar allegations have been charged against Costa Rica from the country’s governing independent human rights institution, which expressed concern on the inaction of the authorities regarding the deportees arriving. The Ombudsman’s Office, stated that aside from the other migrants, passengers were also being taken without their passports and other relevant papers and given no suitable explanation to their whereabouts. 

The southbound journey comes with a great sense of detachment and uncertainty. 

For a long time, Panama and Costa Rica served only as transit countries for migrating north. Both have now attempted to address the recent influx of people migrating south and try to streamline the process. 

Thomson Reuters and AP had news about Kimberly Pereira, a 27 year old Venezuelan traveling with her husband and four year old son.

After crossing the dangerous terrain known as the Darien Gap that cut across Panama and Colombia as well as traveling through Central America, Pereira had been waiting for an asylum appointment in Mexico for months. Unfortunately, after she Trump took office and sealed off legal routes to the US, she lost all hope a long time ago and decided to go back home regardless of the ongoing issues in Venezuela. 

However, after spending one week in a detainment center in Costa Rica that is located along the Panama border, she said that it felt like a prison sentence. 

There, officials have informed them that they would be taking a flight to Ccuta, which is located in Colombia and is close to the border with Venezuela. Instead, they were placed into buses and transported to a Panama port on the Caribbean Sea. 

If they were to be honest, we do feel safer. They have provided us with food. But my main problem is the chaos. The, Come here, now go over there and get in this," she said. 

The frustration of Panamanian immigration grew rapidly when she and other migrants were having conversations with an AP journalist in a public. To their surprise, immigration took it upon themselves to bus almost 200 migrants to a different location. Journalists were baffled and tried to follow them, but were halted mid-road by officials who didn't want to be followed.

While authorities in Panama has yet to make a public statement regarding the incident, journalists were granted access to trail the migrants after raising concerns of press freedom.  

On the Colombian side of the border, Pereira and other migrants have also boarded wooden boats which, during the night Thursday, brought them close to the Colombian- Panamanian border where they planned to proceed with the journey. The price of the ride is as much as 200 dollars per person.   

She wondered, “if the government is trying to help, why do they keep chasing away journalists?”