Central America Struggles to Manage Record Migration, International Community Yet to Find Solution

Central America's transit program: Migrants are transported by bus from Panama through Costa Rica to the Nicaraguan border daily, yet face poor camp conditions and confusion over their rights, spurring a regional health emergency and talks of a humanitarian crisis.

• Costa Rica and Panama have launched a bus program to transport thousands of migrants daily from the Darien Gap to the Nicaraguan border, a solution primarily aimed at lessening the impact on their own countries rather than to control migration.
• Many migrants, particularly Venezuelans, feel unwelcome, and the conditions in migrant camps, including poor sanitary conditions and insufficient food, have compelled them to continue their journeys as quickly as possible.
• More than 420,000 migrants have crossed the Darien Gap this year, and U.S. authorities report having stopped migrants more than 1.8 million times in the first 11 months of this fiscal year.
• The volume of migrants has led the Costa Rican government to declare a state of emergency, citing a lack of capacity to handle the influx despite generous aid, and a need for better camp conditions, more resources, and improved efforts to halt disease spread.
• Countries en route to the U.S., such as Nicaragua and Honduras, have dealt with the migration in varying ways, causing different sets of problems for the migrants, from rapid and unchecked flows to free movement but deplorable living conditions.

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