Migrant crossings via the Darien Gap, the only route from South America into Central America and then on to the US southern border, have fallen by 99%.
According to data provided to The New York Times by the Department of Homeland Security, just 408 migrants crossed through the Panamanian jungle in February of this year.
In February 2024, by contrast, 37,166 people crossed the Gap. The change represents a 99% decrease in traffic.
Over the full four years of Joe Biden’s term, it’s reckoned 1.2 million migrants crossed the Gap, bound for the US. Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino has taken credit for the collapse in migration.
““I said I was going to close it, and I closed it,” Mulino said. “It was like a living in a 21st century concentration camp. Now, that camp is history.”
A more likely story is that Trump’s immigration policies have simply deterred the overwhelming number of migrants from making the perilous journey, since they know it will only end in their being repelled at the US southern border.