Record 400K U.S.-bound migrants trek through dangerous Darién jungle this year

Hundreds of people sleep in tents each day outside Bajo Chiquito, the first village that migrants encounter in Panama after making the grueling trek across the Darién jungle.

Manuel Rueda

BAJO CHIQUITO, Panama — Bajo Chiquito is a small Indigenous village built along a river. It’s the first place that U.S.-bound migrants reach in Panama, after making the hazardous trek across the Darién jungle.

Here hundreds of people stand in long lines under the blazing sun, as they wait to register with Panamanian immigration officers who enter everyone’s names on computers.

The migrants are exhausted and dehydrated after walking across the rainforest for several days. But the officers in Bajo Chiquito only have three laptops to process the large crowds. And while almost everyone here is allowed into Panama for a few days, many complain about the wait.

“This is horrible,” said Valeria Aponte, a Venezuelan migrant who had been in line for two days. Like most people here, she had no intention of staying in Panama. She was headed to the United States. “There are no numbers, or anything, and if we leave the line we will lose our spot,” Aponte said, while crouching on the ground because she was exhausted from standing.

The Darién Gap, the treacherous stretch of roadless jungle that stands between South America and Central America, is once again experiencing a rise in the number of crossings.

Despite a U.S.-backed deal with Colombia and Panama to “end the illicit movement” along this route, numbers of migrants traversing the jungle’s trails have spiked to an all-time high. In the first nine months of this year, 400,000 migrants have…