Panama Will Release Migrants From Detention Camp, Challenging Trump’s Deportation Efforts

Panama will release 112 migrants who had been deported from the United States last month and were being held in a remote jungle camp, a minister said on Friday, after lawyers and advocates said the conditions violated Panamanian and international laws.

The migrants come from countries that the United States cannot easily return deportees to, often because those nations will not receive them.

Panama was issuing 30-day temporary humanitarian passes to the migrants to give them time to arrange their return to their homelands, or to other countries willing to take them, Panama’s security minister, Frank Ábrego, told reporters on Friday. He said the passes have a possible extension of up to 90 days.

The decision to release the migrants could represent another challenge to President Trump’s efforts to deport millions of migrants from the United States.

In mid-February, when the United States began sending planeloads of people from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Panama and Costa Rica — and then those countries began locking up the deportees — it appeared that he had enlisted two pliant nations to help with his ambitious deportation plans.

The images of people locked in a hotel in Panama seemed a potentially powerful deterrent for those thinking about migrating to the United States.

But the decision by Panama to release the migrants suggests that it may be harder than the Trump administration had hoped to press other nations into helping carry out mass expulsions.

The decision to release the migrants did not involve the United States and was made solely by Panamanian officials, according to a person familiar with the discussion among those officials, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The release amounted to offering the migrants a form of temporary protected status, the person said.

While the government would not offer the migrants hotels or other lodging after they left the camp, known as San Vicente, the migrants would be directed to options for shelter and other assistance, including petitioning for asylum in countries other than their own, the person said. He did not provide further details.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“It’s hard to outsource immigration policy because other countries have their own constraints,” said Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization.

“This was a bid by the Panamanian government to buy some good will with the Trump administration,” he added. “But it was not yet a developed strategy.”

Mr. Ábrego said that of the 299 migrants that had arrived from the United States, 177 had already returned voluntarily to their countries of origin and another 10 were waiting for flights.

The remaining 112, including several children, come from Afghanistan, Iran and other nations and had been held for more than two weeks in a camp about four hours from Panama’s capital. They would be released in the coming days, Panamanian officials said.

People detained in the United States who cannot be easily repatriated present a hurdle for the Trump administration’s plans for deportations.

Migrant families are also a challenge because under U.S. law, the authorities cannot detain families with children for extended periods.

The administration appeared to have found a workaround last month by sending migrants from other parts of the world to countries willing to take them in, like Panama. The country is under enormous pressure to placate Mr. Trump, who has threatened to take over the Panama Canal.

The migrants held in the San Vicente camp were among those flown to Panama in February and locked for several days in a downtown hotel. Those who did not agree to be deported back to their countries, or who could not easily be sent back for logistical reasons, were bused to the remote camp in eastern Panama, at the edge of the Darién Gap.

The decision to release them comes as Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, faces growing pressure from human rights groups over the country’s decision to detain the group without charges.

It was also becoming apparent to officials that it was going to be very difficult to deport some of the migrants — as Panama said it was planning to do — because many came from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the Central American nation.

If the government of Panama had chosen to hold these people until it could deport them, it might have been holding them for months or more.

This month, an international coalition of lawyers filed a lawsuit against the government of Panama before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming that the detention of the migrants violated domestic and international laws, such as the American Convention on Human Rights.

In a statement, Álvaro Botero Navarro, one of the attorneys on the case, called the move a “positive step.” But other lawyers in the coalition added that the government has still not offered a solution to their clients, who they say have the right to seek asylum.

Panamanian officials have repeatedly said that two U.N. agencies — the International Organization for Migration and the U.N. refugee agency — were in charge of the group at the camp.

But neither agency has been present on a daily basis at the camp. Instead, it is Panamanian officials who guard the camp, control access and run daily operations inside. The camp is a fenced campus, migrants have not been permitted to leave, and journalists have not been permitted to enter. Most migrants inside have not had access to legal counsel, according to a few migrants inside who still have cellphones.

Mr. Ábrego said in his remarks that the migrants would be able to speak to their lawyers by today or tomorrow.

Jorge Gallo, a spokesman for the I.O.M., said it was present at the camp on Friday, providing translation services and other assistance at the request of the Panamanian government. He said the organization “welcomes the decision” to release the migrants.

A spokesman for Panama’s security ministry, Aurelio Martínez, said the migrants could move freely in the country, but for no more than 90 days.

“After those 90 days if they stay in the country then they would be staying illegally,” he added.

Mohammad Omagh, a 29-year-old Afghan migrant who was deported from California to Panama, said on Friday that he and a group of men were called into an office to sign several forms allowing for their release.

When he asked if he could apply for asylum in Panama, he said the authorities told him that Panama was not accepting any asylum applications and staying long term was not an option.

He and 14 other men, all of them single, signed the documents, he said.

“They told me you can leave the camp and take a bus to Panama City or wherever you want to go, we are not responsible for you anymore,” he said in a telephone interview from the camp. He said he did not have enough money to pay for hotels and meals.

“It feels like Panama just wants to get rid of us and they don’t want to be responsible for us,” Mr. Omagh said.