She asked to be identified only as \u201cAmbo,\u201d out of fear of being recognized back in her home country. <\/p>\n
Over the ambient noise of blade fans attempting to cool the large room, she explained she left her native country of Cameroon due to \u201cpolitical issues,\u201d fearing that she would either be \u201csentenced dead\u201d or spend the rest of her life in prison if she stayed. <\/p>\n
She remembers arriving at the US-Mexico border on January 23 \u2013 three days after US President Trump\u2019s inauguration \u2013 after trekking through Central America and the dangerous Dari\u00e9n jungle. <\/p>\n
She turned herself in to United States Customs and Border Protection in hopes of making her case for asylum. By her count she spent 19 days in US custody, then finally got that chance \u2013 or so she thought. <\/p>\n
Just after midnight on February 13, by her recollection, she and other migrants were loaded onto a bus where they drove for hours. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were so happy thinking that they were going to transfer us to a camp where we are going to meet an immigration officer,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n
She still thought that when she was loaded onto a plane, believing they were headed to another facility in the United States. But when they landed, they were in Panama. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking them why are they bringing us to Panama? \u2018Why are we in Panama?\u2019\u201d she said, \u201cPeople started crying.\u201d <\/p>\n
Even still, she was optimistic. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re like thinking maybe the camp in the US is full. That is why they are bringing us here. When it will be our turn, they will come and take us to give us a listening ear,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Even in a new country, under a new government authority, she held out hope someone from the United States government would step in and fix the situation. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d Her voice cracked, recalling the moment her optimism shattered. <\/p>\n
This is the downstream reality of an increased immigration crackdown in the United States, which the Trump administration has pressured Latin American countries like Panama, Costa Rica, and El Salvador to help with. <\/p>\n
Just days before she arrived at the border, Trump had signed an executive order effectively shutting down the US-Mexico border to migrants seeking asylum in the United States. Weeks later, the Panamanian government agreed to receive some of those migrants, at least temporarily, and took in nearly 300. <\/p>\n
Many are asylum-seekers from places like Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Sri Lanka. They are now are caught in limbo \u2013 expelled from the United States, but unable to go back to their home countries out of fear of being persecuted or killed. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey shouldn\u2019t just like abandon us like that without telling us what we have done wrong. It become very, very difficult and confusing to us. I\u2019ve left my children back home,\u201d Ambo said through tears. <\/p>\n
Another woman from Ethiopia, was on a similar flight. She too requested not to use her name for fear of retaliation in her home country. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am so shocked. I\u2019m saying this is Texas or Panama?\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n
They all now live in a humble shelter, one of multiple places in Panama where these migrants are trying to navigate life, in a country where they don\u2019t speak the language. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost all of us are from different countries, but here we are like family, you know?\u201d said the woman from Ethiopia. <\/p>\n
Days after they were initially brought to a Panamanian hotel, the migrants were loaded onto buses again. They expected to be moved to another hotel, Ambo says. <\/p>\n
But the drive stretched on for hours, until they arrived at a facility over a hundred miles outside of Panama City on the outskirts of the Dari\u00e9n jungle near the border with Colombia. <\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going to kill us? Why are you bringing us here?\u201d she recalled asking in fear, \u201cBringing us in this place, a forest. What is going to happen to us?\u201d <\/p>\n
Artemis Ghasemzadeh, an English teacher from Iran, remembers crying after being expelled from the United States on her February birthday. <\/p>\n
In February she was seen in a window of the migrant hotel with the words \u201cHelp Us\u201d written across the window. <\/p>\n
Days later she was at this Panamanian jungle camp, known as the San Vicente shelter, with over 100 other migrants who were in the same situation as hers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe food was really disgusting,\u201d said Ghasemzadeh. \u201cThe bathroom was really dirty, no privacy, no door,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Salam said the water for bathing was not clean, causing hives to break out on her skin. She pulled up a pant leg to show the marks on her skin. \u201cAll my body is like this,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Panama\u2019s President Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino has repeatedly denied that authorities have violated the deportees\u2019 rights. Reached for comment about conditions at the camp, a spokesperson from the Panamanian Security Minister\u2019s office deferred to the International Office for Migration (IOM), which assists migrants. <\/p>\n
Through every step of the way, attorneys for these migrants argue their rights were violated. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur claim is that America violated the right to seek asylum and by extension, by receiving them, the Panamanian government did the same thing,\u201d said Silvia Serna Rom\u00e1n, regional litigator for Mexico and Central America for the Global Strategic Litigation Council. \u201cEven though they all claim to be to be asylum seekers, they have never had their right to be heard,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Serna Rom\u00e1n is part of a group of international lawyers that filed a lawsuit against Panama on these alleged violations in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Ian Kysel, who is also part of that group, has previously said they are exploring a range of further legal actions, including against US-specific entities and other countries that might be taking in deported or expelled US migrants. <\/p>\n
Panama has denied any wrongdoing in this saga. <\/p>\n
In early March, the Panamanian government released the over 100 migrants from the remote jungle camp, but gave them 30-day \u201chumanitarian\u201d permits, extendable up to 90 days, to find another place to go or risk deportation from Panama. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also trying to navigate the terms of those permits,\u201d Serna Rom\u00e1n explained. \u201cIf they\u2019re only given 90 days and the 90 days come up then they might be forcibly removed and they might be like involuntarily be taken back to their countries and that\u2019s our concern,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
\u201cAsylum means I\u2019m not safe in my country, I need help. Just that. I\u2019m not criminal. I\u2019m educated person and just need help,\u201d Ghasemzadeh explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I come back to my country, my government will kill me, so in Panama they are free to kill me,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Ambo, her life now in a demoralizing standstill, still dreams about the United States, even though she has no idea when this nightmare will end. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica has always been a country that received people from all over the whole world. I believe that is why many people are going towards the USA for to seek for asylum,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey should listen to us and see if they can permit us to stay or not because when you don\u2019t listen to somebody, it means that human rights does not exist again in America.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She asked to be identified only as \u201cAmbo,\u201d out of fear of being recognized back in her home country. Over the ambient noise of blade fans attempting to cool the large room, she explained she left her native country of Cameroon due to \u201cpolitical issues,\u201d fearing that she would either be \u201csentenced dead\u201d or spend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}