Panama’s Mulino to close migrant route
PANAMA CITY, May 11, (AP): Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the US border.
President-elect says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north.
Whether Mulino is able to reduce migration through a sparsely populated region with little government presence remains to be seen, experts say.
“Panama and our Darien are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said after his victory with 34% of the vote in Sunday’s election was formalized Thursday evening.
As he had suggested during his campaign, the 64-year-old lawyer and former security minister said he would try to end “the Darien odyssey that does not have a reason to exist.”
The migrant route through the narrow isthmus grew exponentially in popularity in recent years with the help of organized crime in Colombia, making it an affordable, if dangerous, land route for hundreds of thousands.
It grew as countries like Mexico, under pressure from the US government, imposed visa restrictions on various nationalities including Venezuelans and just this week Peruvians in an attempt to stop migrants flying into the country just to continue on to the US border.
But masses of people took the challenge and set out on foot through the jungle-clad Colombian-Panamanian border. A crossing that initially could take a week or more eventually was whittled down to two or three days as the path became more established and entrepreneurial locals established a range of support services.
It remains a risky route, however. Reports of sexual assaults have continued to rise, some migrants are killed by bandits in robberies and others drown trying to cross rushing rivers.
José Raúl Mulino ❑ ❑ Mexico’s candidate slips: ❑
Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate slipped up during a campaign speech Friday and said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was motivated by “personal ambition,” but later acknowledged the phrase “could be misinterpreted.” In Mexico it is used to describe a desire for personal economic gain.
Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum holds a comfortable polling lead ahead of the June 2 elections and has sought to link her candidacy to López Obrador, who founded their Morena party. He is by far the more popular of the two politicians, and Sheinbaum has pledged to follow his policies.
So it was all the more surprising when she said Friday that “we are not going to reach the presidency like Andrés Manuel López Obrador did, out of personal ambition.”
She later corrected herself, posting a statement on her social media accounts saying: “Upon finishing my speech in Baja California Sur, a colleague told me there was a phrase that could be misinterpreted ... It’s obvious President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has transformed our country without personal ambitions.”
❑ ❑ ❑ Mother’s Day march in Mexico:
Hundreds of mothers of missing people, relatives and activists marched in protest through downtown Mexico City Friday to mark a sad commemoration of Mother’s Day.
The marchers, angry over what they say is the government’s lack of interest in investigating the disappearances of Mexico’s over 100,000 missing people, chanted slogans like “Where are they, our children, where are they?” They carried massive banners that, in some cases, showed nearly 100 photos of missing people.
The Mother’s Day march comes just days after officials managed to find the bodies of three foreigners less than a week after they went missing in Baja California state, while many Mexican mothers have been searching for the sons and daughters for years, and even decades.
“Because they are foreigners, those boys’ country put the pressure on to look for them and they found them,” said Maria del Carmen Ayala Vargas, who has been looking for almost three years for any trace of her son, Iván Pastrana Ayala, who was abducted in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz in 2021.
❑ ❑ ❑ Peru prez brother, lawyer held:
Peruvian authorities arrested President Dina Boluarte’s brother and her lawyer Friday over influence-peddling accusations, a day after the South American country’s government disbanded a police unit that assisted prosecutors in investigating the president’s inner circle.
A judge signed off on the arrests, according to a copy of the warrant obtained by The Associated Press. The document accuses the president’s sibling of working to appoint government officials in exchange for money and an agreement to gather signatures to register a political party.
The developments mark the latest step in mounting pressure on Boluarte, who became president in December 2022 when she replaced then-president Pedro Castillo. He was dismissed by Parliament and is now imprisoned while being investigated for alleged corruption and rebellion.
The warrant also granted the prosecutors’ request to keep both men incommunicado for 10 days, a legal maneuver that authorities typically reserve for cases they deem highly serious.
❑ ❑ ❑ Brazil flooding forecast to worsen:
More heavy rain is forecast for Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state, where many of those remaining are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.
More than 15 centimeters (nearly 6 inches) of rain could fall over the weekend, according to the Friday afternoon bulletin from Brazil’s national meteorology institute. It said there is also a high likelihood that winds will intensify and water levels rise in the Patos lagoon next to the state capital, Porto Alegre, and the surrounding area.
Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar.