Trump’s Pressure on Countries and International Organizations Erodes Protections for Asylum-Seekers

Migrants were sent to Panama as part of President Donald Trump ’s high-profile campaign to ramp up deportations.

Three flights, carrying a total of 299 migrants, including children as young as 5 , landed in Panama in mid-February .

The migrants had traveled to the U.S. from Iran , Uzbekistan , Nepal , Vietnam , India and China , among other countries.

Some 40% of the donations that have funded the IOM 's work come from the U.S. , a former official says.

Without the legal protections established under international law, asylum-seekers like those that the United States transported to Panama have been left to fend for themselves.

Migrants wrote that bathrooms and showers had no doors for privacy, that they were held in sweltering temperatures.

As migrants at the Darien camp scrambled to figure out what they’d do after leaving, they felt free to openly use their phones.

IOM officials reached out to faith-based shelter managers seeking places for the migrants to stay.

The agency was “whitewashing” Panama ’s collusion and “dirtying its own hands” by participating in an improvised effort, an official says.