1 month ago
15
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
More than 100 people deported by the United States have been held in a remote camp for weeks. Their release could pose a challenge to President Trump’s deportation efforts.
March 7, 2025Updated 2:07 p.m. ET
Panama will release 112 migrants who had been deported from the United States last month and were being held in a remote jungle camp under conditions that lawyers and advocates said violated Panamanian and international laws.
They come from countries that the United States cannot easily return deportees to, often because those nations will not receive them.
Panama was issuing 30-day temporary humanitarian passes to the migrants, with a possible extension of up to 90 days, to give them time to arrange their return to their homelands or to other countries willing to take them, Panama’s Security Minister Frank Ábrego told reporters on Friday.
It was not clear whether the migrants would receive any kind of help once they were released.
The decision to release the migrants could represent another challenge to President Trump’s efforts to deport millions of migrants from the United States.
In mid-February, when the United States began sending planeloads of people from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Panama and Costa Rica — and then those countries began locking up the deportees — it appeared that he had enlisted two pliant nations to help with his ambitious deportation plans.
The images of people locked in a hotel in Panama seemed a potentially powerful deterrent for those thinking about migrating.
