Panamanian authorities recorded in 2018 the transit of 2,100 people "of interest" to Washington.

• Of the 8,445 illegal migrants located in Darien (a 20% increase in two years), 91% came from Asia and Africa, with goal mostly to reach the USA.

• U.S. Southern Command deployed helicopters in January and February 2019 to enhance surveillance capabilities of the dense jungle area

• The presence of AIS in the Central American migrant caravans last fall prompts Washington to focus on the Darien Gap.

report SRA 2019 / Alex Puigrefagut[PDF version].

APRIL 2019-One of the most famous icons on the American continent is the Pan-American Route: a network of roads that runs from Argentina to the United States and even allows you to reach Alaska. Between one end and the other there is only one point where you have to get out of the car: 130 kilometers of thick vegetation between Panama and Colombia, really impassable, even difficult to cross on foot. It is the Darien jungle, which is known as the Darien Gap.

Precisely because it blocks the land transit between South America and Central America, it has traditionally been a area with little surveillance of migratory flows. This lack of monitoring, however, has led in recent years to a call effect of illegal immigration, mainly from Asia and Africa, which is of concern to the United States. Many of these immigrants are classified by Washington as Special Interest Aliens (SIA), because they come from countries that, according to the U.S., show a tendency to promote, produce or protect criminal organizations, mostly terrorists. If they emerge in Panama, they can easily use Central American migratory routes to the US, as has been denounced in the recent crisis of the caravans that departed from Honduras.

Panama' s National Migration Service recorded the passage through Darien of 8,445 illegal immigrants in 2018 (with December still to be computed), of which 5,400 were from Asia and 2,287 from Africa, which together accounted for 91% of the entire contingent. This is an increase of 20% in two years. Of these, 2,123 were nationals from countries the US sees as a potential terrorist threat: most were from Bangladesh (1,440), but also from Eritrea (418), Pakistan (151), Yemen (34), Somalia (32), Afghanistan (10), Iraq (10), Mauritania (10), Syria (7) and Egypt (2). At the end of 2017, the Panamanian National Border Service detained 26 citizens of Yemen with alleged links to terrorist groups.

That migratory flow of people labeled as SIA by Washington was already alerted in 2016 by the US Homeland Securitydepartment , which sent a memo to US border authorities to be vigilant.

With a focus on Darien, in June 2018 the US and Panama agreed to establish a Joint Migration Task Force (JMTF), with the goal to ensure more effective and comprehensive coordination to address illegal and uncontrolled immigration in the region. Security authorities from both administrations prioritized action against drug trafficking and other types of organized crime that could pose a threat to the security of both Panama and the U.S. and the region as a whole. In January and February 2019, the US Southern Command used helicopters for transports to improve surveillance facilities in the Darien.

USA and Colombia

The main purpose of the JMTF created between both States is that there may be exchange of information and resources to establish strategic border points and thus combat all subject of organized crime on the southern border of Panama, such as drug trafficking, arms, people and especially for the comprehensive monitoring of the possible penetration of illegal migrants considered SIA that may be effectively related to international terrorist organizations. In addition, for the proper functioning of the JMTF, the two governments agreed to meet bilaterally twice a year to effectively supervise and coordinate the border security groups.

Already in 2016, the governments of Panama and Colombia implemented more measures to strengthen the fight against drug trafficking and combat organized crime, as well as illegal migration, through the Binational Border Security Commission (COMBIFRON). These measures included the creation of two shared surveillance points between the two navies in order to control migratory flows along the border of both countries, especially in the Darien region. The area had historically been a place of influence for Colombian cartels and a rearguard for guerrilla forces, so the peace process with the FARC was an opportunity to seek greater state control.

The main problem in the Darien challenge in recent decades, according to some observers, was the passivity shown by Colombia, which gradually decreased patrolling and land control of its part of the border, leaving Panama with limited resources in the face of criminal groups, thus causing a considerable increase in illegal trafficking of drugs, arms and people along the border. This Colombian passivity was mainly due to the fact that the transit of illegal migrants did not create migratory pressure on Colombia, since the flows were towards the northern part of the continent. Although today both countries pay attention to the Darien, control of the area is still deficient, partly because maritime security is prioritized over land security, especially in the case of Colombia.

Central American caravans

The illegal passage through the Darien of people that Washington considers "of interest" because they come from countries that can foment terrorism is part of international routes to the southern border of the United States. Ample evidence sample that the Darien Gap has become a strategic point for regional and U.S. security.

The presence of individuals categorized as SIA was at the center of the discussion on the various migrant caravans that in the fall of 2018 departed from Central America - they emerged in Honduras and increased in size as they passed through El Salvador and Guatemala - and headed for the US-Mexico border. As found by the US think-tank Center for a Secure and Free Society (SFS), these caravans involved individuals from outside Central America, originating from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, some of whom entered within SIA's label . From agreement with SFS, these people had a privileged attention in the development of the convoys, which could even indicate a connivance between SIA networks and certain channels of Central American migration. The same center found that Guatemalan officials detected no less than 157 irregular migrants from other continents during those days, of which at least 17 were of "special interest" to the US because they came from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Eritrea.

It is difficult to establish how many people with profile SIA actually transit through Central America to the U.S., as their identities are falsified to go unnoticed during their journey. On the other hand, the US president exaggerated the state of alarm over the large Central American caravans, because even if there were reasons for the alert, it should not be forgotten that the vast majority of Special Interest Aliens who enter the US and who are highly dangerous because of their direct connections to terrorism arrive by air and not by land. According to an explanatorystatement of the department of Homeland Security of the United States, every day a average of ten people who are catalogued in the "terrorist watch list" are detained (3,700 in the last fiscal year), although few of them enter through the US border with Mexico.