Migration through the Darién Gap much reduced

Chapter 10 / Migration and Remittances

By Martin Mowforth

Further to numerous articles we have included in the previous few ENCA Newsletters regarding the remarkably high migration rate northwards through the Darién Gap in Panama, various reports have noted a sizeable reduction in this rate of movement during the first few months of 2025.

First, in November 2024, the Tico Times reported a 39 per cent decrease from the first ten months of 2023 to the same period in 2024. 482,000 migrants crossed the jungle in the first ten months of 2023, whilst the equivalent figure for 2024 was 294,000. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino explained that his government had closed several routes through the jungle during 2024 and that they had begun to deport migrants with the deportation flights paid for by the US government.

In January this year, the AFP reported that the 2023 total migrant crossings of 520,000 had fallen to a total of 302,000 for 2024, a fall of 41 per cent. To the end of 2024, Panama had deported 1,500 migrants on about forty flights to Colombia, Ecuador and India. Venezuelan migrants were allowed to continue their travel northwards as Venezuela does not allow the arrival of flights from Panama.

In March this year, Axios reported on the dramatic fall in migrants in the first two months of this year; and then in April, the New York Post reported that numbers of migrants had plummeted in the first months of this year. Axios reported that only 408 made the crossing in February this year, the lowest level since November 2020 during the pandemic. The Trump administration naturally holds these figures up as a success for Trump’s immigration policy, but Boston College law professor Daniel Kanstroom believes that such immigration is episodic and that the figures will increase again, particularly because the conditions in origin countries which prompt the movement northwards have not changed.

In April, the New York Post showed before and after photos of various points on the routes through the Darién and declared the routes now to be “virtually deserted”. The paper placed the ‘credit’ for this situation on US President Trump’s crackdown on illegal migration. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino also claimed the success of Trump’s war on immigrants.

Neither president would acknowledge the human rights and loss of human dignity associated with their deportations; and neither president would show any understanding of the association between US foreign policy towards countries of the South and conditions in those countries and the phenomenon of mass migration. If President Trump’s policy on economic tariffs makes employment and poverty conditions worse in countries of the South, it will be interesting to monitor the trends in immigrant figures and immigrant passages through the Darién in the coming years.

Sources

  • Emily Crane, 10 April 2025, ‘Once-overrun Darién Gap route to US virtually deserted amid Trump’s illegal migrant crackdowns, before-and-after photos show’, New York Post
  • AFP, 2 January 2025, ‘Migrant Crossings Through Panama’s Darién Gap Drop 41% in 2024’
  • Tico Times, 21 November 2024, ‘Migration Through Panama’s Darién Jungle Sees Significant Decline’
  • Russell Contreras, 13 March 2025, ‘Migrant traffic through the Darién Gap plummets’, Axios