Migration to the United States through the dangerous jungle passage known as the Darién Gap has been halted, at least temporarily, following the arrest of two boat captains who work for companies that play an essential role in ferrying migrants into the jungle.
According to the mayor of Necoclí, shipping companies have suspended migrant crossings from two northern Colombian cities, Necoclí and Turbo, to the entrance to the Darién forest, leaving approximately 3,000 migrants stranded in those communities.
Colombian law enforcement action in the region is sure to be watched closely by U.S. officials: The Biden administration has been pressuring Colombia for months to do more to stop people from using the Darién as a route to the United States .
The boat route is the main route to access the Darién Gap, a strip of land connecting South and North America that was once rarely traversed but which in recent years has emerged as one of the most important and busiest migration routes in the hemisphere.
Nearly a million people have crossed the Darién since 2021, authorities say at the end of the route in Panama, helping fuel a migration crisis in the United States.
According to the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office, last week the Colombian Navy seized two boats belonging to the two companies, Katamaranes and Caribe, which were transporting a total of 151 migrants from Necoclí to the jungle.
The agents ascertained that the migrants were being transported illegally, arrested the two boat captains and took control of both boats.
The arrests mark a major shift in the strategy of Colombian authorities, who for months have allowed maritime operators to openly transport migrants from Necoclí across the Gulf of Urabá to the towns of Acandí and Capurganá, where people enter the jungle.
In an interview on Wednesday, Necoclí Mayor Guillermo Cardona said shipping companies, which operate large fleets and have several captains, had stopped operations in recent days “as a form of protest” against the arrests.
Maritime operators have become key players in a multimillion-dollar migration business that has thrived in northern Colombia.
In September, the New York Times reported that this business was run by local politicians and business leaders, including Katamaranes’ manager, who was running for mayor in Necoclí at the time. (The manager did not win and was not among those arrested.)
U.S. officials have privately asked Colombian officials since at least October to investigate the boat operators.
In a recent interview, a prominent Colombian prosecutor, Hugo Tovar, said that his office is working “hand in hand” with the United States on the issue of human trafficking through Colombia and Darién. Two US agencies, Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are providing training and sharing information to help in the investigation, he added.
Necoclí is a seaside town with limited resources and infrastructure and has been overwhelmed by migrants in recent years.
It is unclear how long shipping companies will halt operations. Migrants have been arriving at a rate of hundreds a day in recent months, and if the protest continues, the number of people stuck in tents on the city’s beaches is likely to rise rapidly, straining water and sanitation services beyond the breaking limit.
This could put pressure on the Colombian government to ease any future arrests of shipping operators, since the government has limited capacity to provide aid to large numbers of people who may become stranded at the northern border.
However, Tovar said, his office remained committed to investigating human trafficking, calling it “a problem that affects the entire hemisphere.”
Mayor Cardona said he is asking the national government for help for the hundreds of migrants who now have nowhere to go. “This is an SOS,” he said.
Immigration through the Darién has emerged as a huge challenge for the Biden administration, especially ahead of the 2024 presidential race.
President Biden and his almost certain Republican rival, Donald J. Trump, are both expected to appear Thursday in different parts of Texas near the southern border.
In 2021, just over 130,000 people crossed the Darién jungle on their way to the United States. In 2022, nearly 250,000 did. Last year, more than 500,000 people crossed the Darién, contributing to a record number of arrivals at the U.S. border.
Biden has sought to discourage this flow by expanding legal migration routes and stepping up deportation efforts at the border.
But these measures have had only a limited effect.
February Ace On the 28th, Panamanian authorities said that more than 72,000 people crossed the Darién this year, a 35% increase compared to the number of people who crossed in the first two months of last year.
The largest number of migrants came from Venezuela, where activists’ hopes that the authoritarian government would allow democratic elections this year have faded in recent months. The second number comes from Ecuador, where the dire security situation has worsened this year. The next three major countries of origin are Haiti, Colombia, and China.
