US puts deportees in limbo by foisting them on its neighbors

Matthew Bristow and Michael McDonald, Bloomberg News on Feb 21, 2025

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The hundreds of migrants from Asia and the Middle East deported to Central America by Donald Trump’s administration this week are among the first caught in a legal limbo that may take years to resolve.

The deportees from different origin-countries now being held in camps or warehouses are posing a major logistical and human rights challenge for Central American governments, which were pressured by Washington to help the U.S. deal with its refugee problem.

“We are helping our powerful economic brother to the north, because if they put a tax on our free trade zones we’re screwed,” Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves said.

Nearly 300 people originally from Asia or the Middle East have so far been sent from the U.S. to Panama, and about 200 have gone to Costa Rica. Guatemala and El Salvador have also agreed to take in deportees from different-origin nations.

The policy of shipping migrants to third countries as “bridges” in a repatriation process is a fundamental change in U.S. policy, and reflects Trump’s willingness to use economic threats to advance the deportation agenda he promised on the campaign trail. Central American nations depend heavily on trade with the U.S., meaning that Trump could devastate their small economies with tariffs if they refuse his demands.

“Who would ever agree to this unless they were blackmailed?” said Adam Isacson, an expert on U.S. migration policy at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Panama’s government said that none of the people it had been sent had criminal records or were terrorists, or presented a security threat to the country.

Death penalty

Many are seeking asylum. But once they are out of the U.S., they are no longer protected by U.S. law and will have less access to attorneys to help them defend asylum cases. It will therefore fall to Central American governments to ensure that their rights are respected.

“The question is what if these people say, ‘Please don’t send me back to Afghanistan / Iran, etc. I fear for my life,’” Isacson said in a written reply to questions. “If these people express fear, they’re going to need a hearing somewhere.”

A New York Times report this week found that some of the people sent to Panama appear to have strong asylum claims, including Iranian converts to Christianity who risk the death penalty for apostasy in their home country.

The people sent to Costa Rica will be taken to a large warehouse in the south of the nation on the border with Panama, according to the presidency. The center is typically used by migrants that recently crossed the jungle to Panama from Colombia, and are waiting to take the bus through Costa Rica on their way to the U.S.

The U.S. government will finance the entire process and the International Organization for Migration will oversee care of the migrants while they are in Costa Rica, the presidency said.

Costa Rica’s government says it expects to hold the migrants for four to six weeks.

The U.S. is also paying for the process in Panama. On Wednesday, the nation’s government transported the migrants in buses to a camp near the Darien Gap, a jungle region where migrants heading to the U.S. typically enter Panama on their way north. One of the migrants, a Chinese woman, escaped, Panama’s immigration authority said.

Panama’s government says that if the migrants want asylum, they will need to formally apply under the country’s regular procedures, or in safe third countries. Security Minister Frank Ábrego said Wednesday that 171 of the 299 migrants have volunteered to return to their countries of origin.

That means the government will likely have to house the other migrants for a prolonged period or be responsible for sending them back to nations where they would risk torture or death.

It’s unclear how large the numbers might eventually become. As of 2022, the U.S. had about 2.3 million unauthorized immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, according to an estimate by the Pew Research Center.

“We believe that one of the reasons the Trump administration is doing this is because these returnees would not be covered under U.S. law,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, Director of Communications at the Migration Policy Institute. “Plus, if there is longer-term detention, it’s cheaper in Panama and Costa Rica.”

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With assistance from Philip Sanders and Andrea Navarro.