Panama Strengthens Illegal Immigration Control...a policy of cooperation with Trump

Amid the threat of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's return to the Panama Canal, the government has announced that it will continue its policy of tightening control over illegal immigrants, most of whom reportedly want to go to the U.S.

"We've reduced the number of immigrants going through the Darien Gap jungle, a walkway to the United States," Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said in a New Year's municipal address.

In the face of Trump's aggressive rhetoric toward the canal, Panama's main source of income, it seems to be cooperating with Trump's emphasis on blocking the inflow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

Panama shut down several routes and reduced them to 300,000 as the number of migrants bound for the U.S. through the Darien Gap jungle rose to 520,000 at one point, sending 1,500 of them home.

Even though it takes up to six days and is dangerous due to the abundance of poisonous spiders and venomous snakes, by nationality, Venezuelans accounted for the largest number of immigrants, with 200,000, followed by Colombia, Ecuador, China, and Haiti.