The U.S. government has agreed to fund flights out of Panama for illegal migrants, in exchange for Panama closing down a main corridor – known as the Darien Gap – for migrants who are traveling by land in order to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.
As WND exclusively reported in March, former Army Green Beret Michael Yon, a war correspondent and expert on "weaponized migration," revealed the "secretive construction" of bridges and a new road deep inside the dense 66-mile jungle region called the Darien Gap. A clear path between Panama and Colombia, he told WND at the time, has "long been envisioned," even though for decades the dangerous Darien Gap jungle region between two disconnected highways had served as a buffer against hoof and mouth disease, screw worms – and human invasion to the north.
Now, in a statement released Monday from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there's a new approach to such "irregular migration."
"As the United States continues to secure our borders and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain, we are grateful for our partnership with Panama to manage the historic levels of migration across the Western Hemisphere," Mayorkas said in the statement.
Mayorkas' statement further says the new U.S. State Department-funded foreign assistance program was initiated to reduce migration through the dangerous Darien region, which saw around 520,000 migrants transit through the region in 2023, and another 174,000 migrants so far this year.
Funding involves the U.S. paying for flights out of Panama, and also building further capacity to execute a safe and humane repatriation processes. Panama has been housing migrants as they pass through the region. The amount of U.S. funding was not announced in the statement.
In 2023, almost 2.5 million migrant encounters were reported. However, DHS states that since President Joe Biden issued a proclamation on June 4 temporarily suspending entry to certain noncitizens, the Border Patrol's 7-day encounter average has decreased more than 40%.
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