The Darién Gap: New FAIR Report Details How Biden Administration Policies Have Lured Migrants to Risk Their Lives, While Imperiling National Security

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As the era of the Biden-Harris open-borders policies comes to a close, the scope of the damage done to millions of migrants from across the globe and to the security of the United States are becoming clear.

A new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reveals how a slow trickle of only the most intrepid migrants through Panama's Darién Gap exploded into a torrent beginning in 2021. Analyzing Panamanian government data, the report finds that in 2020, the year prior to President Biden assuming office just 6,465 migrants were encountered making the perilous journey through the Gap. Within one year, 133,726 such encounters were recorded by Panamanian authorities, and by 2023 that figure had nearly quadrupled to 520,085. Between January 2021 and October 2023, some 1.18 million people were encountered as they made their way to the U.S. border.

The lure of Biden's open borders also globalized the flow of migrants attempting to reach the U.S. Just 676 migrants from Asia and Africa passed through the Darién Gap in 2020. By 2023, that number grew to 52,495. The number of those who perished, including young children, while attempting to cross that dangerous stretch of mountainous jungle is unknown, but surely significant.

"There can be little doubt that the exponential increase in people crossing the Darién Gap in 2021 had everything to do with the signals that were sent by the Biden administration from the day it took office," asserted Dan Stein, president of FAIR.

"Beginning on Day One, the Biden administration ended the Remain in Mexico policy, which effectively deterred illegal migrants because they knew they would not be permitted to stay in the U.S. pending the resolution of their immigration cases. Instead, the administration implemented wholesale catch-and-release policies of illegal migrants, even releasing migrants when detention space was available, all but assuring them that entering a bogus asylum claim would allow them to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely. The response from economic migrants worldwide was inevitable, predictable, and tragic," said Stein.

The peril of the human traffic passing through the Darién Gap was not limited to the migrants themselves, finds the FAIR report. It also poses significant threats to the security of the United States. The list of nationality groups encountered coming through the Gap were people from countries that range from hostile to avowed enemies of the United States. These nations include Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Nigeria, North Korea, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Moreover, Panamanian authorities report encounters with individuals with ties to Islamist terror groups, including Hezbollah. 

"The new FAIR report adds to the body of evidence that the imperative of open borders on the part of the Biden-Harris administration superseded all other considerations. Not the lives and safety of the migrants themselves, nor the security of the American people, nor the impact of mass illegal immigration on communities all across the United States ever took a back seat to the ideologically-driven agenda of allowing unlimited numbers of people to enter our country," Stein concluded.

The full report can be found here.

Contact: Joey Chester, [email protected] or 202-740-7355

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)