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    US deportees moved from Panama City to Darién jungle region, lawyer says

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    A group of immigrants deported from the US to Panama last week have been moved from a hotel in the capital to the Darién jungle region in the south of the country, according to a lawyer representing an immigrant family.Susana Sabalza, a Panamanian immigration lawyer, said a family she represents was transferred to Metetí, a town in the Darién, along with other deported people. La Estrella de Panamá, a local daily, reported on Wednesday that 170 of the 299 people who had been in the hotel had been moved to the Darién.Panama’s government did not respond to a request for comment.The 299 immigrants had been staying at a hotel in Panama City under the protection of local authorities and with the financial support of the United States through the UN-related International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency, according to the Panamanian government.Immigrants in the hotel were not allowed to leave, and at least one person tried to kill themselves, while another broke his leg trying to escape, according to media reports.Panama’s migration service said on Wednesday that a Chinese woman had escaped from the hotel. It asked her to return and accused unspecified people outside the hotel of aiding his escape.On Wednesday afternoon there were still migrants on the hotel. One family came to a window and gestured to a journalist outside they had no phone. Police later came to move reporters away from the hotel.The group includes people from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, who has agreed with the US to receive non-Panamanian deportees. The deportation of non-Panamanian immigrants to Panama is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to ramp up deportations of people living in the US illegally.One of the challenges to Trump’s plan is that some people come from countries that refuse to accept US deportation flights, due to strained diplomatic relations or other reasons. The arrangement with Panama allows the US to deport people of these nationalities and makes it Panama’s responsibility to organize their onward repatriation. Human rights groups have warned that immigrants risk mistreatment and may be endangered if they are ultimately returned to violent or war-torn countries of origin, such as Afghanistan.Sabalza said she had not been able to see her clients while they were held at the hotel in Panama City and she is seeking permission to visit them at their new location. She declined to identify their nationality, but said they were a Muslim family who “could be decapitated” if they returned home.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSabalza said the family would be requesting asylum in Panama or “any country that will receive them other than their own”.Mulino said previously the immigrants would be moved to a shelter in the Darién region, which includes the dense and lawless jungle separating Central America from South America that has in recent years become a corridor for hundreds of thousands of people aiming to reach the United States. Panama’s security minister said on Tuesday that more than half of the people deported from the United States in recent days had accepted voluntary repatriations to their home countries.With reporting by Reuters More

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      U.S. Deports Migrants From Asia to Panama

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      The move could herald a new front in the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations, one that allows for more rapid removal of migrants whose home countries are reluctant to accept them.The Trump administration deported migrants from several Asian nations to Panama on Wednesday night, Panamanian and U.S. officials said, in a move that could signal much faster removals of immigrants who have remained in the United States because their countries have made it difficult to return them.The flight carrying the migrants, a military plane that took off from California, appears to be the first of its kind during the Trump administration. It came on the heels of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit last week to Panama, which has been under tremendous pressure from President Trump over how it runs the Panama Canal.The more than 100 migrants on the flight, including families, had entered the United States illegally from countries such as Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. It is often difficult for the United States to return migrants to those nations.President José Raúl Mulino of Panama, speaking at a news conference on Thursday morning, said 119 people of “the most diverse nationalities in the world” had arrived the night before on a U.S. Air Force flight at an airport outside Panama City.Mr. Mulino said they were being housed in a local hotel and would be moved to a shelter in Darién, a province in Panama’s east, a process managed by the International Organization for Migration. From there, he said, they would be repatriated.“We hope to get them out of there as soon as possible on flights from the United States,” Mr. Mulino said, adding, “This is another contribution Panama is making on the migration issue.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elecciones en Panamá: la figura más prominente de la contienda no está en la boleta

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      El país centroamericano se dirige a las urnas el domingo para elegir a un nuevo líder tras una campaña que ha sido influida por un expresidente convicto que solicitó asilo en la embajada de Nicaragua.Las elecciones presidenciales de Panamá del domingo están ante una situación peculiar: la figura más prominente de la contienda no está en la papeleta de votación.Ricardo Martinelli, un expresidente de la nación centroamericana y conocido por sus simpatizantes como “el Loco”, había sido uno de los principales contendientes hasta que fue inhabilitado por una condena por blanqueo de capitales.Pero desde la embajada de Nicaragua en Ciudad de Panamá, donde se le otorgó asilo, Martinelli ha estado haciendo una intensa campaña por José Raúl Mulino, un exministro de Seguridad Pública que era su compañero de fórmula y que ahora ha tomado su lugar en la papeleta.Mulino ha encabezado las encuestas entre los ocho candidatos, prometiendo regresar a Panamá al crecimiento económico que experimentó bajo el mandato de Martinelli, quien fue presidente del país de 2009 a 2014.“Todos con el loco y el loco con Mulino”, dice un jingle en un canal de TikTok para simpatizantes de Martinelli.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Most Prominent Voice in Panama’s Election Isn’t on the Ballot

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      The Central American nation heads to the polls on Sunday to elect a new leader after a campaign influenced by a convicted former president who has sought refuge in Nicaragua’s Embassy.Panama is holding a presidential election on Sunday while facing an odd situation: The most prominent player in the race is not on the ballot.Ricardo Martinelli, a former president of the Central American nation and known to his supporters as “El loco,” or the crazy one, had been a top contender until he was disqualified because of a money laundering conviction.But from inside the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama City where he was granted asylum, Mr. Martinelli has been strenuously campaigning for José Raúl Mulino, a former public security minister who was his running mate and took his place on the ballot.Mr. Mulino has led the polls in a field of eight candidates, vowing to return Panama to the economic growth it experienced under Mr. Martinelli, who was president from 2009 to 2014.Political chaos has characterized the election, which takes place amid widespread frustration with the current government and in the aftermath of major protests last year against a copper-mining contract that demonstrators said would damage the environment.The candidates are competing for a five-year term in a single-round vote — whoever receives the highest percentage of votes wins. Voters will also be choosing representatives for the National Assembly and local governments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Migration Through Darien

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      On Friday, boat companies began operating in Colombia after a five-day pause, allowing migrants to once again make their way through the notorious jungle terrain and continue toward the U.S. border.Migration toward the United States through the perilous jungle known as the Darién Gap returned to normal on Friday, with hundreds of people from Venezuela, Ecuador and beyond entering the jungle following a roughly five-day pause in which migrants could not begin the trek.The pause in this increasingly large migration flow was the result of an arrest operation led by the Colombian prosecutor’s office, in which two captains driving boats full of migrants headed to the jungle were taken into custody, where they remain, according to the prosecutor’s office. The office said that the captains had been transporting the individuals illegally, in part because the migrants did not carry proper documentation.The captains worked for two boat companies — Katamaranes and Caribe — that for years have been playing an essential role in carrying migrants from the northern Colombia community of Necoclí about two hours across a gulf to the entrance to the jungle, which they must then cross to get to Central America and eventually the United States. The boat companies have been doing this openly — something documented extensively by The New York Times — and the arrests seemed to signal a shift in policy by Colombian authorities.But in retaliation for the arrests, the boat companies paused transport, and the number of migrants waiting around in Necoclí and another exit town, Turbo, swelled quickly to several thousand people. That posed an enormous challenge to both towns, which do not have the resources or infrastructure to house and feed so many people for an extended amount of time.The arrests of the boat operators came after months of pressure by the United States on the Colombian government to do more to limit or stop migration through the Darién. In a recent interview, Hugo Tovar, a Colombian prosecutor, said his office was working diligently, with the help of the United States, to investigate and arrest human traffickers.On Friday, Johann Wachter, secretary of the Necoclí municipal government, said that the boat companies decided to restart operations after a meeting between representatives from the boat companies, local governments, the Colombian national migration office and other agencies, including someone from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More