Migrants from Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, and China deported from the United States and stranded in Panama are going from embassy to embassy in a desperate search for asylum in any country that will take them.
Just weeks ago, these deportees were at the center of international humanitarian concern. Now, with little legal assistance and no clear path forward from authorities, they fear being forgotten.
“After this, we don’t know what we’ll do,” said Hayatullah Omagh, a 29-year-old Afghan who fled his country in 2022 after the Taliban took power.
In February, the United States deported nearly 300 people, mostly from Asian countries, sending them to Panama as a temporary stop since Washington faced difficulties repatriating them directly. As the Trump administration sought to accelerate deportations, some migrants accepted voluntary return to their home countries, but others refused due to fear of persecution and were sent to a remote camp in the Darién jungle for weeks.
In early March, Panamanian authorities moved them to the capital and gave them one month to leave the country. According to the government, the migrants rejected assistance from international organizations and chose to handle their own applications. However, with limited resources, no familiarity with the country, and no Spanish language skills, they have encountered numerous obstacles.
On Tuesday, a group of migrants visited several diplomatic missions in Panama City, including the embassies of Canada and the United Kingdom and the consulates of Switzerland and Australia, hoping to start the asylum process. They were either turned away or told to contact the embassies via email. However, their messages went unanswered or received generic responses stating that no assistance could be provided.
In an email, Omagh detailed the reasons for his escape and pleaded, “Please don’t let them send me back to Afghanistan, a place where I have no chance of survival.”
The Canadian embassy in Panama responded that it does not offer visa, immigration, or refugee services. At the British embassy, a security guard handed the asylum seekers a pamphlet titled “Emergency Assistance for British Nationals.” The Swiss consulate directed them to contact the embassy in Costa Rica and provided a document with contact information printed from its website.
The migrants traveled halfway around the world to reach the U.S. border, where they sought asylum. Instead of receiving protection, they ended up in Panama, a country many of them had already crossed months earlier on their way north.
Some deportees are considering applying for asylum in Panama, but both international organizations and Panamanian authorities have warned them that obtaining refugee status is virtually impossible.
Álvaro Botero, an immigration rights activist with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said he was not surprised that embassies turned them away, as countries only grant asylum in extreme cases of political persecution and may fear straining relations with the U.S.
“It is crucial that these people are not forgotten,” Botero warned. “They never asked to be sent to Panama, and now they are here, not knowing what to do, what their future holds, or how to return to their countries.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has further tightened its immigration policies: shutting down legal pathways at the southern border, accelerating deportations, and suspending refugee resettlement programs, as well as cutting funding for organizations that could assist the stranded migrants in Panama.
Last weekend, the U.S. government deported over 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were detained in a maximum-security prison for gang members. Washington claimed—without providing evidence—that they were part of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.
On Thursday, the migrants visited the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). According to Omagh, officials informed them that they could not help them seek asylum in other countries due to restrictions from the Panamanian government. They were only offered assistance in applying for asylum in Panama but were warned that it was highly unlikely their applications would be approved.
That same day, Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, warned that U.S. federal aid cuts would negatively impact refugee assistance worldwide.
“We urge member states to uphold their commitments to displaced people. Now is the time for solidarity, not retreat,” Grandi said in a statement.
The deportees, including Omagh, fear that foreign governments and humanitarian organizations are abandoning them.
As an atheist and a member of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, Omagh believes that returning to his country would be a death sentence. Before reaching the United States, he spent years trying to live in Pakistan and Iran, where he was denied a visa.
Another migrant, Russian national Aleksandr Surgin, explained that he fled his country after openly opposing the war in Ukraine on social media. He said Russian officials warned him that he could be imprisoned or, worse, forced to join the military and fight in the war.
