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More than 100 asylum seekers from around the world sent to Panama from the United States have no sense how long they will be held or where they might eventually be sent.
Feb. 28, 2025, 5:01 p.m. ET
The camp lies four hours from Panama’s capital, down a bumpy, often desolate highway, at the edge of a treacherous jungle called the Darién.
For more than a week, it has held more than 100 asylum seekers from around the world. Surrounded by fences and armed guards, they sleep on cots or hard benches.
Journalists have been barred, lawyers say they have been blocked from speaking to their clients and it is the government in charge — not the international aid groups Panamanian officials say are the ones organizing the operation.
The migrants are among several hundred people who arrived in recent weeks at the U.S. southern border, hoping to seek asylum in the United States, and were swiftly deported to Central America.
They have since become test cases in the Trump administration’s effort to send some of its most challenging-to-deport people to other countries. Of the roughly 300 people sent to Panama, more than half have agreed to be repatriated, according to President Raúl Mulino.
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