By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-27 14:05:40 | Updated at 2024-09-30 13:36:08
2 days ago
CAPURGANA, Colombia – 'Hey! Hey you! Alto! Stop!' three Columbian cartel soldiers shouted at me and my translator as we ducked into a small shop and pretended not to hear their commands.
I'd come to Capurgana, a dusty seaside village on the northwest coast of Columbia to investigate international efforts to shut down one of the world's most notorious human smuggling routes – the Darien Gap.
It's a 70-mile stretch of dense jungle connecting South America and Panama through which 1.5 million migrants from 170 countries have passed from 2021 to August 2024.
Capurgana is one of the last major stops before these travelers enter Central America seeking a new life further north, invariably in the U.S.
What I discovered shocked me – and, for a heart-pounding moment, I thought I'd never make it out with the story.
Instead of finding any progress toward reining in a historic illegal immigration crisis here, I uncovered the opposite.
I'd come to Capurgana, a dusty seaside village on the northwest coast of Columbia to investigate international efforts to shut down one of the world's most notorious human smuggling routes – the Darien Gap.
Capurgana (above) is one of the last major stops before these travelers enter Central America seeking a new life further north, invariably in the U.S.
Migrants arrive in Capurgana daily by the hundreds from all over South America and places as far-flung as Africa, the Middle East and China.
They're met on the docks by foot soldiers of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a powerful paramilitary drug-trafficking cartel that rules the region's smuggling routes.
The migrants pay hundreds of dollars each for passage and permission to travel north through the Darien Gap to Panama and beyond.
I'd been warned that the cartel kept a close watch on everything here, so I posed as a tourist.
For a full day, I'd been flying a drone out the window of my hotel room – filming the Gaitanistas shuttling men, women and children from the docks to the Darien Gap to begin their journey.
But when I began documenting the operation from the ground, I was spotted and chased into a convenience store by three Gaitanistsa goons.
'Hand over the camera,' one of the hulking men demanded.
I backed up against the cash register.
On my phone was the damning footage of their activities. It felt that keeping it secret could be a matter of life or death.
I'm just a 'gringo,' I told them through my translator, an 'adventure tourist.'
They weren't buying it.
I briefly considered an escape, thinking of the taser I carry in my front pocket. But even if we got away, there was only one way out of Capurgana — the boats controlled by the Gaitanistas.
When I began documenting the operation from the ground, I was spotted and chased into a convenience store by three Gaitanistsa goons. 'Hand over the camera,' one of the hulking men demanded. (Above) Author Todd Bensman
They're met on the docks (above) by foot soldiers of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a powerful paramilitary drug-trafficking cartel that rules the region's smuggling routes.
I raised my hands in surrender. 'Okay, I'll tell you the truth about everything,' I said.
Around a cheap plastic table in a restaurant next door, I explained that I was an American journalist. Thankfully, even the Gaitanistas are not so bold as to harm a Yankee.
They let me leave on the condition that I take the first boat out of town the next morning and, in the meantime, I was instructed to stay out of their way.
They had work to do. And they've never been busier.
For decades, fewer than 10,000 migrants a year passed through towns like Capurgana to cross the Darien Gap.
But after President Joe Biden came into office, demolished his predecessor's security measures and essentially opened the U.S. southern border, that number increased to 133,000 immigrants in 2021.
Then, the seven-day crossing was still notorious for rapes, robberies and murders.
Indigenous inhabitants on the Panamanian side routinely killed migrants for their money and valuables. Women ran the risk of sexual assault from fellow migrants and cartel guides. Flash floods along the river were known to sweep away entire families camping in the middle of the night. The weak and injured were routinely left by the trailside to die.
Now, nearly everything has changed.
No longer a torturous seven-day trek, the current passage through the Darien Gap is a two or three-day walk along trails heavily patrolled by Panamanian border police.
Why? In April 2022, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas signed an agreement with Panama to help ease the humanitarian disaster - that the White Hoyuse helped create by throwing open America's gates.
The administration declared its commitment to 'safe, orderly, and humane migration,' worldwide.
In 2023, U.S. State Department agencies further increased contributions to the United Nations's International Organization for Migration to a staggering $1.4 billion, according to a database that tracks federal spending.
Hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars began flowing into Panama.
No longer a torturous seven-day trek, the current passage through the Darien Gap is a two or three-day walk along trails heavily patrolled by Panamanian border police.
The nation built new migrant processing centers and welcomed dozens of non-governmental agencies to provide aid to the illegal travelers.
So much was the investment that the once dangerous passage now resembles an American-built migrant 'super-highway.' As a result, illegal immigration in the Darien Gap has exploded even further.
Crossings grew to 250,000 by the end of 2022.
In 2023, 520,000 traversed the Gap.
Midway through this year, nearly a quarter million had made the trip.
The migrant flow is so overwhelming now that Panama's National Border Service chief told me his country screens less than one percent of the migrants.
They used to question up to 90 percent about their criminal histories and potential ties to terrorism.
It was no wonder that Panamanians have had enough.
Panama's new president Raul Jose Mulino has pledged to close the crossing – and, at least in writing, the Biden administration has agreed to help.
On July 1, DHS Secretary Mayorkas said the U.S. would help fund deportation flights of illegal migrants from Panama back to Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
But that help hasn't yet materialized, according to President Mulino.
'I will never tire of reiterating my position before the international community,' he posted on Twitter this week. 'Darien will no longer be the path through which thousands of illegal immigrants continue to cross to the United States; this humanitarian crisis will come to an end.'
On Tuesday, Biden's Treasury Department announced sanctions for a handful of leaders of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia – calling the cartel, 'one of the country's largest drug trafficking organizations and a key contributor to human smuggling through the Darién Gap.'
Some may see the move as progress, but others in the region know that sanctions won't change the situation on the ground.
It is difficult for critics to see this as anything less than a feeble response to a humanitarian crisis of the administration's own making.
As long as this Biden-build migrant 'super-highway' remains open, misery and the criminality that feeds on it will continue.
