PANAMA CITY (AP) — After weeks of lawsuits and human rights criticism, Panama on Saturday released dozens of migrants who were held for weeks in a remote camp after being deported from the United States, telling them they have 30 days to leave the Central American nation.
It thrust many like Hayatullah Omagh, a 29-year-old who fled Afghanistan in 2022 after the Taliban took control, into a legal limbo, scrambling to find a path forward.
“We are refugees. We do not have money. We cannot pay for a hotel in Panama City, we do not have relatives,” Omagh told the Associated Press in an interview. “I can’t go back to Afghanistan under any circumstances ... It is under the control of the Taliban, and they want to kill me. How can I go back?"
Authorities have said deportees will have the option of extending their stay by 60 days if they need it, but after that many like Omagh don’t know what they will do.
Omagh climbed off a bus in Panama City alongside 65 migrants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal and other nations after spending weeks detained in poor conditions by the Panamanian government, which has said it wants to work with the Trump administration “to send a signal of deterrence” to people hoping to migrate.
Human rights groups and lawyers advocating for the migrants were waiting at the bus terminal, and scrambled to find the released migrants shelter and other resources. Dozens of other people remained in the camp.
Among those getting off buses were migrants fleeing violence and repression in Pakistan and Iran, and 27-year-old Nikita Gaponov, who fled Russia due to repression for being part of the LGBTQ+ community and who said he was detained at the U.S. border, but not allowed to make an asylum claim.
“Once I get off the bus, I'll be sleeping on the ground tonight," Gaponov said.
Others turned their eyes north once again, saying that even though they had already been deported, they had no other option than to continue after crossing the world to reach the U.S.
The deportees, largely from Asian countries, were part of a deal stuck between the Trump administration and Panama and Costa Rica as the U.S. government attempts to speed up deportations. The administration sent hundreds of people, many families with children, to the two Central American countries as a stopover while authorities organize a way to send them back to their countries of origin.
Critics described it as a way for the U.S. to export its deportation process.
The agreement fueled human rights concerns when hundreds of deportees detained in a hotel in Panama City held up notes to their windows pleading for help and saying they were scared to return to their own countries.
Under international refugee law, people have the right to apply for asylum when they are fleeing conflict or persecution.
Those that refused to return home were later sent to a remote camp near Panama's border with Colombia, where they spent weeks in poor conditions, were stripped of their phones, unable to access legal council and were not told where they were going next.
Lawyers and human rights defenders warned that Panama and Costa Rica were turning into “black holes” for deportees, and said their release was a way for Panamanian authorities to wash their hands of the deportees amid mounting human rights criticism.
Upon being released Saturday night, human rights lawyers identified at least three people who required medical attention. One has been vomiting for over a week, another deportee had diabetes and hadn't had access to insulin in the camp and another person had HIV and also didn't have access to medicine in detention.
Those who were released, like Omagh, said they could not return home.
As an atheist and member of an ethnic minority group in Afghanistan known as the Hazara, he said returning home under the rule of the Taliban — which swept back into power after the Biden administration pulled out of the country — would mean he would be killed. He only went to the U.S. after trying for years to live in Pakistan, Iran and other countries but being denied visas.
Omagh was deported after presenting himself to American authorities and asking to seek asylum in the U.S., which he was denied.
“My hope was freedom. Just freedom,” he said. “They didn't give me the chance. I asked many times to speak to an asylum officer and they told me ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
Still, he said that leaving the camp was a relief. Omagh and other migrants who spoke to the AP detailed scarce food, sweltering heat with little relief and aggressive Panamanian authorities.
In one case, Omagh and others said, a Chinese man went on a week-long hunger strike. In another, a small riot broke out because guards refused to give a migrant their phone. The riot, they said, was suppressed by armed guards.
Panamanian authorities denied accusations about camp conditions, but blocked journalists from accessing the camp and cancelled a planned press visit last week.
While international aid organizations said they would organize travel to a third country for people who didn’t want to return home, Panamanian authorities said the people released had already refused help.
Omagh said he was told in the camp he could be sent to a third country if it gives people from Afghanistan visas. He said that would be incredibly difficult because few nations open their doors to people with a Afghan passport.
He said he asked authorities in the camp multiple times if he could seek asylum in Panama, and said he was told that “we do not accept asylum.”
“None of them wants to stay in Panama. They want to go to the U.S.,” said Carlos Ruiz-Hernandez, Panama’s deputy foreign minister, in an interview with the AP last month.
That was the case for some, like one Chinese woman who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions from Panamanian authorities.
Upon getting off the bus, the first thing she wanted to do was find a Coca-Cola. Then, she'd find a way back to the U.S.
"I still want to continue to go to the United States and fulfill my American dream," she said.
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Janetsky reported from Mexico City.
