PANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama is detaining in a hotel nearly 300 people from various countries deported under U.S. President Donald Trump, not allowing them to leave while waiting for international authorities to organize a return to their countries.
More than 40% of the migrants, authorities say, won’t voluntarily return to their homeland. Migrants in the hotel rooms held messages to the windows reading “Help” and “We are not save (sic) in our country.”
The migrants hailed from 10 mostly Asian countries, including Iran, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and others. The U.S. has difficulty deporting directly to some of those countries so Panama is being used as a stopover. Costa Rica was expected to receive a similar flight of third-country deportees on Wednesday.
