ILLEGALS from All Over the World Travel Through the Darien Gap to Enter the U.S.

People smugglers take migrants from Southeast Asia. 
Panama has experienced a wave of migrants from as close 
as Cuba and as far as Africa and Asia, who arrive in Panama
 through the Darien Gap jungle or by coastal boat on 
their way to the U.S.

Ahmed Hassan staggered through dense Panamanian jungle, crazy with thirst, his rubber sandals sliding in the mud, fearing he would die thousands of miles from his homeland in Somalia.

“I told my family I would go to the U.S., that was the plan,” said the 26-year-old truck driver, who said he fled late last year when al-Shabaab militants took his village. He flew to Brazil and made a cross-continental bus trip to Colombia. 

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In March came his biggest test: crossing the Darien Gap that connects South America with Panama and Mr. Hassan’s ultimate goal, the U.S.

“There was no water. There were snakes,” he said in a small holding center in Metetí, north of the jungle, gashes and bites covering his legs under his traditional sarong. “I thought I might die in that jungle.”

Clothing left behind attests to the migrants who have 
taken a mountain path from Colombia into Panama. Migrants 
typically pay people smugglers $200 to $500 to cross the Darien 
Gap jungle and about $700 for the coastal route. 
Carlos Villalon/WSJ

Migrants go to extremes for new beginnings. Honduran families put children on northbound trains. Hundreds of Africans recently drowned braving the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat. People cross the deadly Sonoran Desert to get from Mexico to Arizona.

Mohammed Khan, a Pakistani, walks through Panama 
after entering illegally from Colombia. Mr. Khan says his 
village pitched in to raise $7,000 for his long journey 
to the U.S. Carlos Villalon/WSJ

The untamed Darien Gap has become a new route for travelers from as near as Cuba and as far as Nepal. The surge reflects the difficulty of entering the U.S. by traditional paths like arriving on a visa and overstaying, said Marc Rosenblum, a deputy director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

“These people are willing to take this risky and complicated route,” he said, “and they are lining up to take it.”

LINK TO: 5 Things to Know About the Darien Gap

U.S. justice and immigration officials say they are working to combat human smuggling on such routes. “We will continue using all of our investigative authorities to identify and dismantle these transnational criminal organizations,” said Barbara Gonzalez, Senior Adviser to Latin America at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The circuitous Panama route has become more attractive, say migration experts, thanks to the easing of visa and asylum requirements in some South American countries and an unwillingness by some governments on the route to carry out mass deportations.

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