In January, shortly before Donald Trump resumed his post at the helm of the United States, incoming border czar Tom Homan informed NBC News that the new administration would be shutting down the Darién Gap—the notorious sixty-six-mile stretch of roadless territory and hostile jungle that straddles Panama and Colombia and constitutes the only land bridge between South and Central America. In 2023 alone, the Darién Gap saw more than 520,000 refugee seekers contend with its horrors as they pursued the hope of a better life in the United States, still over three thousand miles to the north. Countless migrants have died navigating the Gap’s formidable rivers, mountains, and armed assailants, and it is next to impossible to speak with anyone who has survived the crossing without receiving a tally of all the corpses they encountered along the way.
As Homan told NBC regarding the promised closure: “It needs to happen . . . Shutting down the Darién Gap is going to protect our national security. It’s going to save thousands of lives.” Never mind the fact that crackdowns on existing migration routes—and the criminalization of migration in general—have never exactly saved lives, instead forcing refugee seekers onto ever more perilous paths and leaving them more vulnerable to extortion by organized crime and security officials alike. The Sonoran Desert and the Mediterranean Sea come to mind, both of which locations have become mass migrant graveyards in their own right—all in the interest of maintaining a global order predicated on the have-nots remaining have-nots. READ MORE AT THE BAFFLER.