Panama closes border with Costa Rica for Venezuelans without a visa

Panama announced the closure of the border for Venezuelan migrants without a visa who try to enter through Costa Rica, many of them after having been denied entry to the United States.

The announcement was made by the director of the National Migration Service (SNM) of Panama, Samira Gozaine.

“All those (Venezuelan) people who crossed the border require an authorized visa to enter Panama, and they are not being authorized to enter through the borders of Costa Rica,” Gozaine told the media on Sunday.

This measure would complicate the passage of Venezuelan migrants who were scattered throughout Central America, such as in Costa Rica and Nicaragua in their attempt to reach the United States, a country that announced the return of Title 42, a health control measure by the COVID-19.

If Venezuelan migrants try to evade immigration checkpoints in the US and are intercepted, they will be subject to deportation under that rule.

For his part, the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, has said that they will enable transportation to mobilize Venezuelan migrants to the border with Nicaragua.

Currently Panama and Costa Rica have implemented the “authorized visa” for Venezuelans to enter this country. In the case of Panama, it was established since 2017, and in Costa Rica since February 2022.

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