Crowds of illegal immigrants who trekked through the vast jungle region between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap while making their way to the U.S. southern border left behind heaps of garbage, gasoline and fecal matter, which South American officials say has resulted in an environmental crisis in the region.
Up to 3,000 migrants would routinely cross the dangerous region every day until illegal immigration plummeted by 94% following President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, according to February 2025 data from Panama’s National Migration Service. The 2,500 tons of trash left behind in the region by migrants traveling to the U.S. southern border during former President Joe Biden’s term has amassed a $12 million cleanup cost, according to the Associated Press.
“[The United States is] not cleaning up their mess,” Panamanian Environmental Minister Juan Carlos Navarro told the AP. “If the United States is responsible because it opened its borders, then the United States should pay for it.”
Panama’s scarce finances make it unable to pay the cost, Navarro told the outlet, noting that the country has not received the money he claimed the U.S. promised it under Biden. While no official U.S. announcement was made regarding this funding, the Biden administration did provide aid to South America several times.
A State Department official described Panama as a “valued U.S. partner and regional leader in addressing illegal immigration,” to the Daily Caller News Foundation, and affirmed that the U.S. is committed to securing the southern border and strengthening enforcement immigration laws. “Since January, illegal crossings through the Darien marked the lowest level of any month since February 2021. In March 2025, only 194 illegal aliens crossed the Darien compared to 36,841 in March 2024,” the official added, further noting that both Trump and Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino are “clear-eyed about the threat illegal immigration poses.”
Communities surrounding the Darien Gap in Villa Caleta fear bathing in the river following the migration surge due to the pollution and garbage, the AP reported. Their main food source, fish, is scarce due to the water polluted by gasoline from the boats. Locals also saw decomposing bodies floating down the Turquesa, according to the publication.
“The fish we catch, they still smell of gasoline,” community leader Cholino de Gracia told the AP. “We can’t fish anymore because you’d practically be eating a fish full of gasoline.”
Beyond the trash, gasoline and dead bodies floating down the river, officials told the AP that tests show critical contamination levels due to copious amounts of fecal coliform bacteria in the water, which is typically associated with human excrement.
Community leader De Gracia and other residents told the publication that the region has been overlooked for years and criticized Panama’s government for failing to adequately address water pollution or invest in development that would enable quicker recovery.
Navarro said that Panama’s government must try to rescue the jungle from a state of “environmental anarchy,” according to the AP. “Now that this disaster has ended, we’re going to be able to conserve our forests,” he continued.
“This is a treasure trove of biodiversity,” Navarro said. “They’ve disrupted the whole system of life in this community and damaged some of them forever,” he continued.
As migrant crossings increased, the Colombian criminal organization known as the Gulf Clan also expanded into the Darien Gap, taking over the migration route, Henry Shuldiner, an Insight Crime researcher studying organized crime in the region, told the AP.
Dense jungles and organized crime have long hindered policing efforts in the Darien Gap. The organized crime syndicates smuggling migrants across the Darien Gap to the U.S. have made billions in the process, with some smugglers reportedly pulling in as much as $14 million a day. Most migrants crossing the region are Latin Americans, from Venezuela and Ecuador, but many African and Asian migrants also use these routes to reach the U.S. illegally.
The Darien Gap is not the only migrant crossing hotspot that has been trashed over the years; the U.S. southern and northern borders each saw an increase in damage to federal lands and private property.
In Arizona, each immigrant left behind an average of six to eight pounds of trash per crossing in 2024, which included human waste, plastic, medical products and vehicles, according to the House Committee on Natural Resources estimates.
“A lot of complaints from the residents [along U.S. northern border] are similar to what we hear at the southern border: That you have migrants crossing basically with impunity on their property, going into their vehicles, leaving trash everywhere and putting them in harm’s way,” former DCNF investigative reporter Jennie Taer told “The National Report” in March 2023.
More than half a million migrants crossed the Darien Gap on their northward journey in 2023, when unlawful migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border reached their highest point in history. The same year, more than half a million migrants passed through the Darien Gap, which was roughly double the nearly 250,000 that crossed the region in 2022.
The Trump administration made it a top priority to crack down on illegal border crossings, signing an executive order to “immediately repel, repatriate, and remove illegal aliens involved in an invasion.”
“Under President Trump, border crossings through the Darien Gap have dropped 99.9 percent, and the number of unaccompanied alien children arriving at the border has hit a record low,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told the DCNF. “Foreign leaders should be grateful for the President’s success, which is helping combat global humanitarian, drug, and environmental crises.”
Trump highlighted the border crisis ahead of returning to office, scrutinizing Biden’s border policies.
“My first day back in the White House I will terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration, stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said in a video released on January 15.
In March, Border Patrol agents recorded approximately 7,180 crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. This number starkly contrasts the previous four-year monthly average of 155,000 crossings and an average of 5,100 daily encounters during that period.
The Panama government did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the White House and information provided by a State Department official.
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