Migrant Fast Lane Exposes Trump’s Challenge in Central America

(Bloomberg) -- After the passage through dense jungle, torrential rain and a raging river, Junior Mendoza stepped onto a tour bus for what would be the easiest part of a hard journey, for his family and hundreds of thousands of migrants headed to the US.

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In between the thicket of the Darien Gap, on the Panamanian-Colombian border, and the treacherous ganglands of Mexico, there’s a stretch of Central America where the trek northward is normally done by bus, in relative comfort and security. Travelers who can afford it can ride 760 miles to the border with Nicaragua under state-sanctioned programs.

Like US President-elect Donald Trump, the governments of Panama and Costa Rica don’t want migrants to stay in their countries, where resources are already scarce. Once they’re through the Darien, it’s more logical and effective to ensure they get where they’re going and don’t get stuck along the path. This fast-track stage in the migrant journey represents a challenge for Trump, who needs the cooperation of other countries to achieve his goal of stopping the flow of undocumented immigration.

Mendoza, a construction worker, fled Venezuela with his wife and three kids to seek asylum in the US and look for jobs that pay more than the $20 a week they earned back home. He had stuffed $600 in his daughter’s diaper bag to hide it from criminals, only to lose it in a river crossing. When his family arrived in Panama in November, they bought dry clothes with the little cash they had left and were swiftly bused north, all the way to the border with Nicaragua, arriving with their backpacks, tents and blankets.

“The bus was a totally different story. We could sit back, relax in peace and rest our feet,” Mendoza said. “The Darien is nasty.”

The agreement to bus migrants through to the Nicaraguan border was signed in October 2023 after record numbers, mostly from Venezuela, crossing the Darien overwhelmed shelters and stretched government finances. President Joe Biden and his officials praised both governments for cooperation on migration, but also expressed concerns in private about incentivizing the journey. Costa Rica expedited transit for more than 316,000 people last year.Migrants pay roughly $60 per person to board the buses in each country, which are operated by private local companies. A few of the coaches are free for those who have waited several days or don’t have enough money. Those “humanitarian” rides are paid for by the bus companies, according to the Costa Rican government.

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Trump’s hard-line stance could threaten the busing program even as the two Central American governments push the US for more aid to deal with the inflows of people. His transition team has reached out through back channels to Mexico and El Salvador about taking in some of the millions of undocumented migrants set to be expelled under his mass deportation plan. His incoming border czar, meanwhile, wants to shut the Darien entirely. And in December, the number of people making the dangerous trek fell to the lowest in nearly three years ahead of next week’s inauguration.

The president-elect’s transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the busing program on Wednesday.

Panama began deportation flights in the middle of last year, returning more than 1,000 migrants with criminal records to their countries of origin. But that’s only a fraction of the more than 300,000 people that crossed the Darien in 2024. The Biden administration helped finance the program, but Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino is seeking more support amid the festering crisis in Venezuela.

“Mr. Trump has to realize that the other border with the United States is in the Darien, and we have to solve this in a bilateral manner,” Mulino told reporters in November. “Panama is doing what it can, and it costs the government ridiculous sums of millions of dollars. The United States needs to be more conscious of the fact that this is their problem, not Panama’s.”

Trump has recently taken aim at Mulino, saying the US might use its military power to take over the Panama Canal, a key route for global trade. Mulino has reiterated that the canal belongs to Panama and says that Trump’s claims of excessive pricing and Chinese meddling in the waterway are unfounded.

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For migrants, the relative comfort of the bus ride offers a brief respite after walking hundreds of miles through rainforest, over mountains and along highways on hot days. The coaches built by Brazilian firm Marcopolo SA carry 60 people, have padded, reclining seats, air conditioning, music and curtains on the windows. It takes roughly 12 hours to cross Panama and another 10 to cross Costa Rica. That compares to several days to get through the Darien.

“I got a little dizzy, but it’s definitely a lot better than walking,” said Ivone Cordero, a Venezuelan migrant on her way to Dallas to reunite with her sister, who made the journey last year.

At the border with Nicaragua, buses arrive all night, and into the early hours of the morning. As many as 18 a day stop in Los Chiles, near the Las Tablillas crossing, dropping off migrants in a dirt parking lot in front of a small central market where vendors sell clothes, cellphone accessories and luggage. Drivers in unmarked cars offer them rides and hotel employees peddle cheap rooms. But many migrants pitch tents on a concrete floor under a roof behind the market to rest before walking three miles along a highway to the official crossing.

Nicaraguan officials demands $150 per person to enter, according to migrants and police officers on the Costa Rican side of the border. Cordero was traveling with her 6-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, who is pregnant, and didn’t have the money. She found enough Wi-Fi signal to send WhatsApp messages to her sister in Dallas, who said she would wire the money to a local Western Union branch a few blocks from the bus stop.

Not everyone is so fortunate. Venezuelan migrant Jefferson Acuna and his wife Amelis Marquez were robbed in the Darien of their money and phones. They had been sleeping in tents behind the market for six days since the bus dropped them off, selling candy until they saved up enough to afford the $150.

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Cuban migrant Dariel Cubillas, a baker, said he didn’t have any cash left. Buying bus tickets and paying bribes to get this far drained his finances, he said. He and his wife, a nurse, watched as groups of migrants sneaked around the official checkpoint down a well-trodden dirt path and into Nicaragua.

“It’s a racket,” he said. “Everyone wants 20%, even people without official uniforms that don’t work for a government or a company. 20% here, 20% there. Cuba has been in crisis for 60 years. How can they think we have all this money?”

Cubillas and his wife waited under a tree on Costa Rica’s side of the border, and mulled over a plan. A bus dropped off another group of migrants. They marched toward another dirt path along a brick wall that circumvents the official checkpoint. One of them made a peace sign with his hand held in the air, and the group disappeared into Nicaragua.

“It’s a daily occurrence,” Costa Rica migration officer Bernie Vargas said. “They go right around the fence through the blind spot.”

--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron.

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