Once a migratory highway, the Darien Gap has been left empty under Trump crackdown

LAJAS BLANCAS, Panama (AP) - A little more than a year ago, the small Panamanian river port of Lajas Blancas was filled with a crush of people trying to make their way to the United States. Now, the makeshift migrant camp has become a ghost town.

More than a thousand migrants a day would cross the harrowing Darien Gap - a rugged jungle passage between Colombia and Panama. In 2023, migration through the passage’s trenches smashed records with more than 500,000 people making the grueling crossing, according to Panama's government, in the hope of a better life.

Vulnerable people would trek for days through the rainforest passages and then board narrow wooden boats across rivers. Most would be dropped off at Lajas Blancas, where they would pack into migrant camps filled with families and board buses to cross Panama to continue their journey north.

In the few months since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, with his tough stance on migration, his administration effectively cut off access to asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border. And while migration took a sharp dip under the final year of the Biden administration, it slowed to a trickle, with barely 10 people a week at Lajas Blancas.

This has left some stranded, triggering a "reverse flow" of Venezuelan migrants who, without other options, traveled by boat along Panama's Caribbean coast in an effort to return home.

Last month, Panama President José Raúl Mulino said: "Effectively, the border with Darien is closed. The problem we had in Lajas Blancas eliminated."

After months of Panama’s government blocking off journalists from visiting the port and other key points along the former migratory route, authorities granted The Associated Press access to the strictly controlled area. Shortly after arriving, journalists were stopped by migration enforcement and were stripped of those permissions, with authorities vaguely citing security concerns.

Still, AP reporters saw the large tents that once housed migrants stand empty and the boats pulling up to the side of the river were few and far between. Makeshift shops selling food, water and other goods to migrants sit empty.

In the Darien Gap, organizations, like the Red Cross and UNICEF, that provided aid to migrants have shut their doors. Panama's border police now strictly control access to the port and authorities have long assumed a discourse dissuading people from migrating.

A handful of migrants from Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria remain in the Lajas Blancas camp and sleep on the dusty ground, guarded by the police.

Among them was 33-year-old Venezuelan Hermanie Blanco, who arrived in Panama days after Trump took office.

Fleeing economic crisis and political turmoil in her home country, she once hoped to seek asylum in the U.S. but decided after crossing the Darien Gap that she would try to seek refuge in Panama, saying she's been stranded in the nearly abandoned settlement for months waiting for an answer.

"Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, no one comes here anymore," she said. "It's deserted."

A sign at the heart of Lajas Blancas acts as a reminder, reading in Spanish, English, Creole, and Arabic: "Darien is not a route, it's a jungle."

Panama and other countries across Latin America have scrambled to meet demands by the Trump administration to crack down on migration north.

The U.S. recently recognized Panama's efforts to reduce migration through the Darién region, with a State Department spokesperson saying it has dropped by 98%.