Panama to allow 112 migrants deported from the US to move about freely in the country
Panama's Security Minister Frank Ábrego said the migrants — from a number of mostly Asian nations — would be granted temporary humanitarian passes as documents. They would find their own places to stay while they decide where they are going next, Ábrego said, without elaborating.
The passes would last for an initial 30 days but could be renewed, he added.
'They have exactly 30 days to figure out how to leave Panama, because they refused … to accept help from the (International Organization for Migration) and (the U.N. Refugee Agency) and said that they wanted to do it themselves,' Ábrego said, speaking to reporters outside a security conference Friday.
'Panama has decided to respect this,' he also said.
Panama has come under pressure from human rights groups for holding the migrants without their passports or cell phones in harsh conditions. Lawyers had petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on their behalf.
Most of the migrants had been moved to the camp in San Vicente on Feb. 19, from a hotel in Panama City where they had initially been held under police guard. Migrants who agreed to voluntarily return to their countries remained at the hotel and those who didn't were sent to the camp in the Darien.
The camp had originally been established for the hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing the treacherous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama in recent years as they made their way toward the U.S. border.
However, President Donald Trump shut down access to asylum and other legal routes at the U.S. southern border in January, forcing many migrants already in transit to reconsider their options. Panama and Costa Rica have reported seeing a reverse flow of migration in recent weeks as migrants begin moving south.
The U.S. had sent 299 migrants to Panama as the Trump administration tried to accelerate deportations as part of a deal in which countries like Panama and Costa Rica act as 'bridges,' temporarily detaining deportees while they await return to their countries of origin or third countries.
Some of the migrants held in the hotel had held up handmade signs in their windows, asking for help.
At the camp, a migrant who had a hidden cell phone had told an Associated Press reporter that they were sweltering, fighting ants and receiving no information about what would happen with them next.
Originally Published: March 7, 2025 at 12:29 PM CST
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