My latest Op-Ed: For years the Darién Gap was the proof that nothing works. Now it’s the proof that something does , and the same people who told you it was hopeless have gone silent . https://t.co/5McfnKbre4.
— Scott Mechkowski (@ScottMechkowski) October 12, 2026
from Scott Mechkowski,
One hundred thirty-five. That is how many irregular crossings the International Organization for Migration (IOM) counted in Panama’s Darién Gap in the first four months of this year, a 95% drop from the same stretch of 2025. In 2023, more than half a million people walked through that jungle.
Newsweek reported it last week. I haven’t seen anyone else pick it up.I spent more than 24 years in immigration enforcement, and for most of them I heard the same thing from the other side of the argument. People will come no matter what you do. Build a wall, they’ll find a tunnel. Add agents, they’ll find a new route. We were told the only real choice was how kindly to treat them when they arrived.
The Darién just answered that.
Let me tell you what that jungle was, because it was never what the cameras showed. It was a toll road, and the Clan del Golfo ran it. Nobody crossed without paying them. Colombia’s Defense Ministry estimated their take at about $125 a head, totaling roughly $57 million in the first 10 months of 2023. Human Rights Watch said $68 million. The most conservative estimate I found, from InSight Crime, was still north of $17 million for the transport packages alone. Pick whichever number you like. That is a cartel’s payroll, and the migrants paid it.
They paid in other ways too. The IOM counted at least 245 people missing in the Darién between 2021 and early 2024 and said the real number is higher. In 2023 alone, Doctors Without Borders treated 676 survivors of sexual violence. That is what the open route cost the people on it.
I keep hearing that America is the last refuge on earth. It isn’t. Colombia hosts more refugees than any country in the world, and as of last fall, more than 1.9 million Venezuelans held temporary protection there. Mexico took in more than 70,500 asylum applications last year and recognizes over 60% of them. Human Rights Watch (HRW), no friend of border enforcement, notes that many people crossing the Darién had already settled in South America for years. CNN recently profiled a Venezuelan woman who said she had crossed seven countries and a jungle to get here. Several of those countries take asylum claims every day.
I am not saying asylum isn’t real. I have met people who needed it, and the law protects them. But asylum was written for people fleeing persecution. It wasn’t written as the cheapest way into a better economy, and many people have figured out how to use it that way. Pay a cartel, cross the jungle, make the claim, get released, and wait. The immigration court backlog is now over 3 million cases. By the time a judge gets to your file, you have a job, a lease, and roots.
Somebody pays for that wait. I spent my career in New York City, and I can tell you what happens there when Washington doesn’t enforce the law. The city holds the bag. Mayor Adams said the cost would reach about $12 billion over three years. The city comptroller counted 340 asylum-related contracts worth an estimated $5.7 billion and found that no-bid deals were charging far more than competitive ones. The Fiscal Policy Institute argues the city’s own share is smaller than the headline. Fine. Even their number is in the billions.
Panama deserves credit for how this ended and blame for how it started. For years, its “controlled flow” program was built to move people through the country as fast as possible. HRW put the cost to migrants at about $140 each for boats and buses. Panama told HRW it spent $60 million on the program in 2022. Then José Raúl Mulino was sworn in, promised to close the Darién, and signed a migration agreement with the United States within hours. The reception camps that fed the bus line closed. U.S.-funded deportation flights started. Crossings dropped about 98%.
Mulino made that call, but he didn’t do it alone. Secretary Rubio traveled to Panama City and thanked him for the joint repatriation program, and a security agreement followed. At home, this administration is doing what the last one refused to do. It treats a hemispheric surge as an invasion that must be repelled. Border Patrol was on pace for roughly 98,000 Southwest border apprehensions this fiscal year, the lowest since 1967.
Smugglers sell one thing, and it is certainty. Pay us, cross, get released, stay. The minute that promise stops being believable, there is nothing left to sell. That is why the Darién went quiet.
Congress should stop treating this as someone else’s job. Write first-country-of-arrival agreements into law with partners that already process claims. Fund enough judges that cases are decided in months, not years. Attach real consequences to a denial. The Darién has shown what works. The only question is whether Washington will write it down before the next administration forgets it.
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Scott Mechkowski served more than 24 years in federal immigration enforcement and retired as deputy field office director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York City. He is a visiting fellow for deportation studies at the Oversight Project.
