Panama sends 97 U.S. deportees to migrant camp after they refused to be repatriated

PANAMA CITY — Panama transferred about one-third of the deportees from various nations it had received from the United States to a camp in its Darien province Wednesday, an area that became the main thoroughfare for migrants traveling from South America to the U.S. border in recent years, security officials said late Wednesday.

The migrants sent to Darien had refused to voluntarily be repatriated to their countries and will be held there until third countries can be found to take them, said a Panamanian official familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

They were part of a larger group of 299 migrants to Panama by the U.S. government as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump tries to accelerate deportations.

Panama’s Security Ministry said in a statement later Wednesday that 97 migrants had been sent to the camp in Darien province and eight more would be sent there in the coming hours. It said 13 migrants had already been voluntarily returned to their countries.

The others remained under police guard in a Panama City hotel awaiting travel arrangements to their countries. The Panamanian government has denied that they are detained, but they are under police guard and not allowed to leave the hotel.

Panama’s National Immigration Service had announced earlier Wednesday that one migrant, a Chinese woman, had escaped the hotel, but later authorities reported her recapture.

Security Minister Frank Abrego wrote on a post on social platform X that she was found abandoned near a migrant processing facility along the northern Panama-Costa Rica border, a high-transit point for migrants headed toward the U.S. While it was not clear if she was found in Panama or in Costa Rica, he blamed her brief escape on “human traffickers.”

The deportees, primarily from Asian countries, are in a sort of limbo in Panama after the Central American nation agreed to serve as a transit point for migrants who are hard for the Trump administration to deport directly to their countries.

Abrego had said on Tuesday that 171 of the migrants had agreed to return to their countries of origin, although he did not provide a specific timeline. He also noted that an Irish citizen had already been repatriated.

The remaining migrants would be sent to a temporary migration facility near the Darien Gap, a heavily forested region along the Colombian border, until it’s clear where they will be sent. The region has historically been used by migrants from Venezuela and other countries to travel north to the U.S.