Nearly 100 migrants recently deported by the US to Panama, where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said.
It is unclear how long the group, deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel migrants in the US without legal permission, will be detained at the jungle camp. Conditions at the site are primitive, the detainees said. The govt has denied access to journalists and aid organisations.
The group includes eight children, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorised to speak on record. Lawyers said it is illegal to detain people in Panama for more than 24 hours without a court order.
Panama’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Ruiz-Hernandez, confirmed that 97 people had been transferred to the camp. “They are not detainees,” he said. “It’s a migrant camp where they will be taken care off.” Ruiz-Hernandez said the camp was the best option available to govt for housing migrants and noted that the migrants had food, water and access to medical and psychological care. He said there were no cages.
The transfer is the latest move in a week-long saga for a group of about 300 migrants who arrived in the US hoping to seek asylum. The group was sent to Panama, which has agreed to aid Trump in his plan to deport millions of migrants living in the US without legal permission.
The agreement is part of a larger strategy by the Trump administration to export some of its most difficult migration challenges to other nations. The US, for varying reasons, cannot easily deport people to countries like Afghanistan, Iran and China, but by applying intense pressure, it has managed to persuade Panama to take some of them.
Last week, Ruiz-Hernandez said Panama was complying with a direct request from the Trump administration to accept the migrants.
Analysts say Panama is also under intense pressure from Trump, who has threatened to seize the Panama Canal over what he believes is Chinese influence in the waterway, a claim that Panama’s president has refuted.
