Nearly 300 deportees from U.S. held in Panama hotel

PANAMA CITY — Panama is detaining in a hotel nearly 300 people from various countries deported under U.S. President Donald Trump, not allowing them to leave while waiting for international authorities to organize a return to their countries.

More than 40% of the migrants, authorities say, won’t voluntarily return to their homeland. Migrants in the hotel rooms held messages to the windows reading “Help” and “We are not save (sic) in our country.”

The migrants hailed from 10 mostly Asian countries, including Iran, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and others. The U.S. has difficulty deporting directly to some of those countries so Panama is being used as a stopover. Costa Rica was expected to receive a similar flight of third-country deportees on Wednesday.

Panama’s Security Minister Frank Abrego said Tuesday the migrants are receiving medical attention and food as part of a migration agreement between Panama and the U.S.

The Panamanian government has now agreed to serve as a “bridge” or transit country for deportees, while the U.S. bears all the costs of the operation. The agreement was announced earlier this month after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, who faces political pressure over Trump’s threats of retaking control of the Panama Canal, announced the arrival of the first of the deportation flights last Thursday.

The confinement and legal limbo the deportees face has raised alarm in the Central American country, especially as images spread of migrants peaking through the windows of their rooms on high floors of the hotel and displaying the notes pleading for help.

Abrego denied the foreigners are being detained even though they cannot leave the rooms of their hotel, which is being guarded by police.

Abrego said that 171 of the 299 deportees have agreed to return voluntarily to their respective countries with help from the International Organization for Migration and the U.N. Refugee Agency. U.N. agencies are talking with the other 128 migrants in an effort to find a destination for them in third countries. Abrego said that one deported Irish citizen has already returned to her country.

Those who do not agree to return to their countries will be temporarily held in a facility in the remote Darien province through which hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed on their journey north in recent years, Abrego said.

The Panamanian Ombudsman’s Office was scheduled to provide more details on the deportees’ situation later Tuesday.