By Kimberly James; WBAP and KLIF News, Dallas, Texas.
WASHINGTON – (WBAP/KLIF) – The United States has signed a deal with the incoming Panamanian President Jose Raul Molino in new efforts to stop migrants from moving north toward the U.S. – Mexico border, before they reach Mexico. Half a million migrants passed through the dangerous Darien Gap last year, about 200,000 so far this year. But the Darien Gap has increasingly become a violent, dangerous place for migrants, with robberies, assaults and even death occurring more and more as cartels take from those who pay to take their chances surviving in their care.
New Panamanian President Molino campaigned on a platform vowing to shut the Darien Gap to migrants and criminals. America’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a departmental team traveled to Panama for the inauguration, and to ink a deal in which Panama will decide – according to its laws – which migrants will be deported to their home nations, and America, that will help fund those flights, be they charter or commercial flights.
Under additional terms of the agreement, U.S. Homeland Security teams on the ground in Panama will help the Panamanians train personnel, building it’s expertise and ability to order deportations. A spokesman speaking on condition of anonymity notes Panama, and not America, will decide, according to its laws, which migrants would be removed from that country.
For those migrants who are to be removed, the U.S. also would pay for charter flights or commercial airplane tickets for them to return to their home countries. The officials have not yet specified how much money the U.S. expects to or has agreed to contribute overall to those flights.
The cooperative venture comes at a time of increasing numbers of migrants from around the world arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico; challenging politicians and America’s society with irregular migrants; those who manage to slip into the United States illegally.
(Copyright, All Rights Reserved, WBAP/KLIF 2024)