From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   U.S.-Bound Migrants Surge at Darien Jungle Crossing in Panama   
   By Ryan Dube and Shen Lu, March 16, 2023, WSJ   
      
   The number of migrants crossing into Panama after trudging through the   
   treacherous Darien Gap jungle reached record levels in the first two months of   
   the year, data from Panama showed, posing a fresh challenge to their   
   destination country, the U.S.   
      
   In January and February, 49,291 people from as near as Haiti and as far away   
   as China have crossed the Darien, a span of rainforest separating Panama from   
   Colombia. That is more than a fivefold increase from the 8,964 migrants in the   
   same period last    
   year, according to Panama’s immigration office.   
      
   “We didn’t expect such a big increase,” said Cristina Zugasti,   
   representative of Doctors Without Borders in Panama, which provides medical   
   treatment for migrants after they emerge from the grueling jungle trek.   
   “We’re very concerned.”   
      
   Panama’s growing number of migrants, who tell officials they are mostly   
   bound for the U.S., now points to a likely increase of people arriving at the   
   U.S.’s southern border in the coming months as they flee economic hardship,   
   crime and political    
   unrest at home.   
      
   About 2,200 Chinese migrants were among those crossing the Darien Gap in the   
   first two months of 2023, a sharp increase in a group that usually has made up   
   a much smaller proportion of migrants through the area. During the same period   
   last year, 71    
   Chinese migrants were recorded passing through Panama.   
      
   The surge comes as a growing number of Chinese have left their country amid   
   anxiety over China’s direction under leader Xi Jinping, manifested by months   
   of some of the world’s harshest Covid-19 restrictions and fresh signs of   
   economic weakness.    
   Chinese migrants have been posting about their treks and the food they eat on   
   the way on Twitter, TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin, using the hashtag   
   #zouxian, which is roughly translated as trek.   
      
   In the U.S., the number of Chinese nationals caught sneaking across the   
   U.S.-Mexico border has fluctuated in recent years. But the numbers soared in   
   February, when U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 1,345 Chinese migrants,   
   according to the U.S. Customs    
   and Border Protection.   
      
   Since the start of the government’s budget year in October, agents have made   
   4,271 arrests of Chinese nationals along the southwest border. That is a   
   12-fold increase from the same period a year earlier.   
      
   Options for Chinese to enter the U.S. have been sharply curtailed in the past   
   few years. In 2019, Chinese undertook around 150 million international trips   
   before the pandemic sharply reduced avenues for them to go abroad. China   
   itself in 2020 halted    
   outbound foreign tour-group travel by its citizens and only in recent months   
   dropped Covid-related restrictions on travelers, while airline seats remain in   
   short supply and international flights remain a fraction of what they were   
   before the pandemic.   
      
   In 2019, the U.S. State Dept said it issued close to 1.2 million visas through   
   its embassy and consulates in China. Last year the figure was one-tenth that   
   number, closer to 122,000. Fewer than 2% of total U.S. nonimmigrant visas   
   issued in 2022 were    
   issued in China, compared with more than 13% in 2019, according to State   
   Department figures.   
      
   Searches on popular Chinese social-media platform WeChat for “zouxian”   
   started increasing in 2021. The most recent and biggest spike in searches for   
   the term occurred on Feb. 1, when WeChat users searched and shared content   
   involving zouxian 550,000    
   times, according to WeChat’s publicly available data.   
      
   Biden has come under growing pressure over his immigration policies after a   
   record 2.2 million arrests of people caught crossing the U.S. border illegally   
   in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.   
      
   Last month, his administration proposed to sharply limit who can qualify for   
   asylum after crossing the border illegally in the U.S. The proposal comes as a   
   pandemic-era public health policy, Title 42, which allowed officials to   
   rapidly expel asylum-   
   seeking migrants, is set to end May 11.   
      
   Ms. Zugasti from Doctors Without Borders said the increase of migrants   
   arriving in Panama is a surprise as fewer people tend to cross in January and   
   February. Last year, Panama logged a record number of migrants arriving by   
   foot into the country from    
   Colombia, with the numbers peaking from August to October.   
      
   In the first two months of this year, the number of crossings already   
   represents a fifth of last year’s total arrivals of 250,000 migrants. Many   
   of those people emerge from the jungle severely dehydrated and suffering from   
   depression and other mental    
   health problems.   
      
   “We’re preparing for what could be a complicated year,” said Ms.   
   Zugasti. “The estimates we have are that this year is going to beat that   
   record.”   
      
   Haitians make up the biggest group that has embarked on the dangerous trek   
   that can last four or five days through thick rainforest infested with   
   poisonous snakes and cocaine-trafficking gangs. In January and February,   
   16,744 Haitians crossed the Darien    
   Gap, up from 1,101 in the year-earlier period, according to the immigration   
   data.   
      
   Haitians have been fleeing their impoverished Caribbean nation, which has been   
   battered by growing violence and social unrest since the 2021 assassination of   
   President Jovenel Moïse. Haitians who moved to South American countries such   
   as Brazil and    
   Chile in recent years have also been heading north.   
      
   Ecuadoreans are the next biggest nationality crossing into Panama as they flee   
   a country that was once a popular destination for American retirees but is now   
   grappling with a surge in drug violence and social unrest. More than 11,500   
   crossed the Darien    
   in January and February, compared with 256 in the same period last year.   
      
   Lorena Yuquilema, a 32-year-old from the Ecuadorean city of Cuenca, didn’t   
   know what to expect in the Darien. Ms. Yuquilema, who sold clothes on the   
   street in Ecuador, had left in February with her younger sister, their   
   children and a cousin. Gangs    
   that extorted her small business prompted them to flee.   
      
   “If you don’t pay, they begin to threaten you, they begin to follow   
   you,” said Ms. Yuquilema, who spoke from Colombia in February before setting   
   off across the Darien. The plan was to reach New York. “I’m scared of the   
   trip for the children,”    
   she said, “but we don’t have another option.”   
      
      
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