Hundreds Of People Are Trapped In A Hotel In Panama After Trump Began Mass Deportations
They will be held there until another country accepts to take them.
Hundreds of people have been trapped in a hotel in Panama due to US President Donald Trump's mass deportation plan.
Nearly 300 people from several Asian countries were deported between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15 from the US to the Decapolis Hotel in Panama, where they were stripped of their passports and most of their cellphones, according to the New York Times.
Armed guards are surrounding the hotel and preventing them from leaving, the New York Times reported.
Another more than 100 people arrived in Costa Rica the same week, according to Al Jazeera.
Most of the deported people are from countries like Iran, Afghanistan and China, which will not accept them due to strained diplomatic relations with the US or other reasons.
They were sent to countries in Latin America after Trump pressured countries across the region to help facilitate the US’ deportations or face tariffs and sanctions.
Panama and Costa Rica then agreed to act as a stopover for the people being deported until their repatriation can be arranged or they can seek protection somewhere, according to AP.
Some of the people, including a group of Christian Iranians and a man from China, told the New York Times that they risk persecution if they returned to their country.
Under Iranian law, converting from Islam to Christianity is a crime punishable by death.
In Panama, it is illegal to detain people for more than 24 hours without a court order.
However, the people deported from the US have been detained in the Decapolis Hotel for almost a week.
171 of the people trapped agreed on Feb. 18 to return to their countries, but it is still unclear when exactly they will return.
On Feb. 19, Panama moved about 97 of the people, including eight children, who refused repatriation, to a remote camp at the edge of the Darién jungle that connects Panama to Colombia and is considered one of the most dangerous migration paths in the world.
They will be held there until another country accepts to take them, according to AP.
In addition to Panama and Costa Rica, Honduras has also been involved in facilitating deportations, as part of Trump’s “bridge deportations” strategy.
Sofia Hou
