Dewey Beach, Delaware, July 9, 2024 --  

A crackdown on migrants in Panama is more about politics than practicalities.

Desperate migrants slogging along jungle trails in Panama's Darièn Gap are too busy surviving to think about the political problems of an aging American president thousands of miles away. But when they unexpectedly found razor wire fencing blocking their path in recent days¹, those distant problems quickly intersected with their own.

Just days before his on inauguration on July 1, Panama's new President José Raúl Mulino visited the jungle region, and within hours of becoming president, his foreign affairs minister signed an agreement with the visiting American Homeland Security Secretary to use American funds for deportation flights.²

With America's political class obsessively discussing a replacement candidate to solve President Biden's age-related image and performance problems, it's easy to forget that until very recently Biden had bigger things to worry about. Chief among these worries is immigration.

Americans as a whole, and Trump sympathizers in particular, are outraged by what they see as the federal government's meek response to large volumes of migrants crossing America's southern border. Since the pandemic, the primary route for these migrants has been to cross the jungle into Panama by foot before riding busses and trains through Central America and Mexico to the American border. Blocking this route at the southern end would (in theory) stem the flow.

But can it work? While holding signing ceremonies with the new Panamanian administration might give Biden talking points, the practical results all come from the follow through.

Photos have already circulated of migrants wiggling through holes dug underneath the razor wire. The numerous paths through the jungle start from various points along Panama's Caribbean coast within easy reach of boats from the Colombian ports of Necocli and Turbo. Many of these routes through mountains, swamps and jungle did not exist five years ago, but since then hundreds of thousands have crossed what are now well-worn paths. Just like before, new paths through the porous wilderness can spring up at any time.

A more practical approach for interdiction would be to redirect Panama's border guard Senafront to detain migrants at checkpoints along the Pan-American highway between its southern terminus of Yaviza and Panama City. But doing that requires new detention facilities, more manpower and a wholesale change from Senafront's current mission of just shooing migrants north to the Costa Rican border.

Actually stemming the flow of migrants is not a realistic project in the few months before the American election. Generating easy talking points about "progress" is all that is realistic.

Don't expect any of this political theater to change should Biden's political troubles force him out of the presidential race. His likely successors, Vice President Kamala Harris Chief among them, will also be under pressure to show toughness on immigration. The current administration will likely assist as it can.

And should Americans be forced to suffer a second Trump administration, that new razor wire polluting the Darièn might evolve into an outer ring of America's southern border wall. Like any good theater it would be dramatic and impressive. Just don't expect it to have much bearing on reality.

Related Web Columns:

Democracy's Hairy Edge, January 23, 2024

Breathtaking Determination, October 26, 2021

Notes:

1. NBC News, Panama is Using Barbed Wire to Try to Block a Major Route for U.S.-Bound Migrants, July 8, 2024

2. Associated Press, US to Pay for Flights to Help Panama Remove Migrants Who May be Heading North, July 1,2024