Rights groups and other observers have raised questions over a United States-led plan to stem the “illicit movement of people” through a dangerous jungle passage between Panama and Colombia popular with US-bound migrants and asylum seekers.
The US Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that a deal had been reached with the Panamanian and Colombian authorities to address “irregular migration” through the so-called Darien Gap.
Rights groups and other observers have raised questions over a United States-led plan to stem the “illicit movement of people” through a dangerous jungle passage between Panama and Colombia popular with US-bound migrants and asylum seekers.
The US Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that a deal had been reached with the Panamanian and Colombian authorities to address “irregular migration” through the so-called Darien Gap.
The 60-day campaign seeks to “end the illicit movement of people and goods through the Darien by both land and maritime corridors”, as well as open “new lawful and flexible pathways for tens of thousands of migrants and refugees”, the department said in a statement.
The countries would also launch a plan to reduce poverty and create jobs in border communities in Panama and Colombia, it added, without going into further detail.
Almost immediately, observers questioned how the effort would function in practice.
“The externalization of the US border continues,” Al Otro Lado, an organisation that provides legal and other assistance to migrants and refugees in the US and Mexico, tweeted on Wednesday.
“The language in this statement is vague on purpose. How exactly do they intend to end migration thru the Darien Gap + ‘reduce poverty, create jobs’ in 60 days? What are these alleged ‘new lawful + flexible pathways’?”
Nearly 250,000 migrants and refugees crossed through the Darien Gap last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – nearly double the number of people who took the route in 2021.
“The stories we have heard from those who have crossed the Darien Gap attest to the horrors of this journey,” Giuseppe Loprete, the IOM’s chief of mission in Panama, said in a statement in January.
“Many have lost their lives or gone missing, while others come out of it with significant health issues, both physical and mental, to which we and our partners are responding.”
The administration of US President Joe Biden, which promised to reverse some of former President Donald Trump’s most hardline, anti-immigration policies, has nevertheless sought to deter migrants and asylum seekers from reaching the country’s southern border with Mexico.
Biden has been under political pressure domestically to address an increase in arrivals at the frontier and is now considering another plan that the United Nations refugee agency has warned could violate US obligations under international refugee law.
The proposal – dubbed an “asylum ban” by critics – would effectively block asylum seekers who arrive at the US-Mexico border from accessing protection in the US if they did not first apply for asylum in Mexico or another country they crossed earlier in their journeys.
Source: aljazeera