Biden’s opportunity: a deal to stem migrant flow through the Darien jungle

A major new development could dramatically reduce undocumented immigration to the United States, which has become a top issue in the campaign for the November elections despite a recent drop in illegal border crossings.

Here’s the novelty: Panama’s President elect Jose Raul Mulino, who takes office July 1, is proposing a deal with the Biden administration to shut down the Darien jungle corridor on his country’s border with Colombia – one of the main corridors for undocumented immigrants to the United States.

Last year, more than 500,000 migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries crossed the Darien jungle on their way to Mexico and the U.S. border.

Mulino told me in an extended interview that he intends to change his country’s outgoing government’s hands-off policy toward undocumented migrants and start to detain them and repatriate them back to the countries where they are coming from.

“I’m very motivated, very decided to cooperate with the Biden Administration from our country to find a solution to this problem that is taking place in the United States,” Mulino told me.

He added that he wants to start daily repatriation flights to send undocumented migrants from Panama to their countries of origin.

“The United States should pay the cost of this operation because it is a U.S. problem,” Mulino told me. “Today, the U.S. border isn’t in Texas; it’s in the Darien in Panama.”

Mulino said he has already discussed the idea of starting daily U.S.-paid repatriation with U.S. diplomats, and hopes to explore it in greater detail with Biden’s envoy to his inauguration ceremony. Although it hasn’t been confirmed yet, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is likely to lead the U.S. delegation, he added.

Mulino conceded that it would be difficult and too expensive to fly them all back to neighboring countries, but he said that the repatriation flights would discourage most potential migrants from embarking on the dangerous journey through the jungle.

“After we send the fourth, fifth or sixth repatriation flight to Colombia or Venezuela, people are going to think twice before risking their lives crossing the jungle,” Mulino told me.

Asked how much money he will ask the United States to help pay for the repatriation flights, Mulino said it’s something to be discussed in the upcoming bilateral talks. “But it’s going to cost a lot of money,” he added.

Some diplomats and immigration experts note that, with one repatriation flight a day, Panama would only be able to send back about 10 percent of the estimated 1,200 undocumented migrants who are crossing the Darien jungle every day. That would hardly make a difference in the overall number of undocumented migrants, they argue.

But supporters of Mulino’s plan say Panama could send more than one repatriation flight a day, and get U.S. intelligence and perhaps even law enforcement advisers to stem the flow of refugees.

John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama, argues that the U.S. government is already paying for deportation flights from the United States and that it could find the funds to pay for such flights out of Panama in a matter of weeks.

“The United States should pay for the flights,” Feeley told me. “The Department of Homeland Security already has a significant budget for repatriating undocumented aliens out of the U.S. If there is sufficient will, they will figure out relatively quickly how to include flights originating in Panama.”

There may be several reasons why Mulino is pushing for the idea of starting a repatriation airlift out of Panama.

As a former security minister, he is very aware that the Darien jungle has become a hotspot for people smugglers, drug cartels and organized crime. In addition, the jungle crossings are creating human rights problems for Panama. Many migrants die victims of diseases, or at the hands of criminal groups.

In addition, Mulino may want to solidify Panama’s status as a top U.S. ally, in sharp contrast with Nicaragua, Honduras or other Central American governments that are either anti-American, or have tense relations with the United States.

Mulino may also want to become a visible leader in regional affairs, in part to assert his own political profile separate from that of former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli. Mulino won the elections thanks to the support of Martinelli, who was convicted for money laundering and is holed up at the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama.

The Biden administration would be smart to strike a deal with Mulino and pay for the migrants’ deportation flights out of Panama. It would help Biden to control the migration flow better, and to expose Republican hopeful Donald Trump’s false claims that there is an alleged “invasion” of migrants.

According to U.S. border patrol data, the flow of migrants through the U.S. border has fallen by 40% during the first four months of this year compared with the previous four months. A deal with Panama to reduce the Darien jungle crossings would lower the migration numbers even more and save many lives along the way.