On July 1, 2024, Panama and the United States entered a diplomatic arrangement for the unprecedented use of U.S. Department of State funds to deport foreign nationals from Panama. Through this initial, six-month pilot agreement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is providing financing and other support to Panama to repatriate people without a legal basis to remain in Panama on charter and commercial flights. While the Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino signed the agreement the day he was inaugurated, he has since raised questions about Panama’s cooperation, highlighting that this is a “United States problem.” The July 1 agreement marks the first time the United States is paying directly for another country’s removal flights.
Five nationalities account for 90 percent of all people crossing the Darien Gap into Panama. Of the 170,000 people who have crossed the Darien in 2024, about 65 percent (109,895) were Venezuelan; seven percent (12,128) were Ecuadorian; six percent (10,963) were Colombian; six percent (10,171) were Chinese; and six percent (9,872) were Haitian. Given logistics and diplomatic realities, IRAP anticipates that the U.S.-financed Panamanian repatriation flights will focus on Ecuadorian and Colombian nationals, likely single adults.
The U.S.-funded repatriation effort presents a significant risk that Ecuadorians and Colombians with valid protection claims under international and U.S. law will be forcibly returned to life-threatening situations. Colombia’s civil war is not over. The country continues to have the largest internal displacement numbers in the Western Hemisphere – with Indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations vastly over-represented among those displaced. Ecuador declared an “internal armed conflict” in January 2024 and had the highest homicide rate in Central or South America in 2023. Ecuadorian journalists are at particular risk and fleeing in disproportionate numbers. The state of emergency itself has led to human rights violations by state security forces.
In announcing the U.S.-Panamanian repatriation arrangement, the Biden administration claims that the program will have safeguards to ensure that the repatriations conform to international law obligations. Yet Panama’s ability to screen for protection claims and avoid refoulement is limited – and more than half of all people interviewed by UNHCR after crossing the Darien reported fleeing their countries due to “threats and attacks or generalized violence.”
The Panamanian asylum agency, the National Office for Attention to Refugees (ONPAR), lacks an independent budget and sufficient staff. It was only in January 2024 that the Panamanian government opened a one-room asylum office – with one staff person, in a temporary container setting – in the Darien Province. (IRAP staff visited in February 2024.) UNHCR’s capacity in the Darien – to support the Panamanian government in complying with non-refoulement obligations – is limited as well. In June 2024, UNHCR reported merely informing about 3,400 people about the Panamanian asylum system. It is entirely unclear how full protection screenings could be conducted to remove as many as 2,000 people a month through the U.S.-funded program.
The Biden administration should reverse course. Rather than financing another sovereign country’s deportation system to obstruct access to the U.S. asylum system, the Biden administration should be expanding access to lawful pathways – in general and for Ecuadorians and Colombians specifically.
For example, the Biden administration’s Safe Mobility Initiative for access to refugee resettlement operates out of both Colombia and Ecuador, but these offices mainly serve Venezuelans. The Safe Mobility Initiative affords exceedingly limited access to some Colombians only if they are located in Ecuador and to some Ecuadorians only if they are located in Costa Rica. The Biden administration should expand access to resettlement for Colombians and Ecuadorians, including by authorizing in-country refugee processing for both countries in the next Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions.
Similarly, the Biden administration included both Colombians and Ecuadorians in the new Family Reunification Parole Process, recognizing their strong ties to the United States. Colombians and Ecuadorians are among the largest diaspora groups in the United States, with roughly half or more of their immigrant populations being naturalized U.S. citizens. Yet in practice, these pathways are not meeting the need.
The Biden administration must facilitate meaningful access to protection and family reunification pathways – not pay for Panama to deport people seeking safety after they endure one of the most harrowing and dangerous land migration routes in the world.