On the first day of July 2024, new Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino began his five-year term and quickly went to work implementing a chief promise that no previous contemporary leader of Panama has attempted. Within hours of inauguration, President Mulino ordered the first tentative steps to “close” the Darien Gap migrant passageway on his border with Colombia, an unprecedented policy U-turn for Panama with significant consequences for the United States.
The Darien Gap is the roadless 70-mile part of the isthmus that connects North and South America, through which a record-breaking 1.5 million foreign nationals from 170 countries passed from 2021 to mid-2024 en route to planned illegal U.S. southern border crossings.
Colombia and Panama had never experienced such high numbers as in those three-plus years, and foot traffic was continuing at the record levels through to Mulino’s July 1 accession as president.
Read the rest of the story at Center for Immigration Studies.
