Panama and U.S. Launch Joint Deportation Flights for Irregular Migrants

Panama will begin deportation flights for irregular migrants as part of a deal with the United States. The agreement, announced by U.S. State Department official Eric Jacobstein, follows Panama's new president Jose Raul Mulino’s pledge to curtail illegal immigration. The U.S. will fund the deportation costs.

Panama will launch deportation flights for irregular migrants in the coming weeks, part of a deal with the United States, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, after the new president in the Central American country pledged to bolster its borders.

"We hope to start as soon as possible," said Eric Jacobstein, a Western Hemisphere official with the U.S. State Department, at a press conference in Panama City. Panama's new president, Jose Raul Mulino, took office on Monday vowing to curb unlawful immigration. His government immediately signed an agreement with the United States to end passage through the dangerous Darien jungle linking Central America to Colombia, which has become a major route for the mostly U.S.-bound migrants.

The U.S. in turn agreed to cover the costs of deporting migrants from Panama. A record 520,000 migrants crossed the Darien last year, many of them children and largely from Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti. The number of migrant crossings there so far this year has

edged up compared to 2023.

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