[mytailorisrich]

I've always thought that "too expensive and detrimental to the environment" was a bit 'too simple, sometimes naive' for an explanation.

Panama was split from Colombia thanks to the US right before the Panama Canal was built. So an obvious line of thought is that the Gap has a defensive purpose to keep both sides well apart. It also helps reduce the flow of people.

[bogota]

Seems like recently that hasn’t been the case as the economic situation in South America continues to worsen more people are crossing on foot.

Strange to be downvoted for pointing out the stats on the linked wiki article.

[readthenotes1]

In the other thread posted on this Gap, I commented that over a quarter of a million people have crossed it already this year, over 60,000 of them being children.

It may be dangerous in an absolutist sense, but it is no longer apparently as dangerous as it was 10 years ago.

[my12parsecs]

I wonder whether the Darien Gap or the US-Mexico border (and surrounding deserts) is more dangerous to cross illegally.

[OfSanguineFire]

The US–Mexico border is so long and varied, danger is going to vary significantly. I cycled the Baja Divide cycling route, which starts from San Diego and goes through the nearby Otay Mountain wilderness reserve before reaching the Mexican border. The trails around Otay are littered with backpacks dropped by migrants, and when I asked a CBP officer parked in his car monitoring the area, he said that patrols were only partly successful and aliens were constantly getting through. It’s just a few km of walking before a migrant will hit a paved road where a prearranged contact can pick him up. Compared to descriptions of crossing the desert farther east, this seemed pretty safe, with the main risk the waste of days and months if one is caught by Mexican or US authorities.

[returningfory2]

There’s a good video in which a YouTube creator gets a tour around the US-Mexico border with an Arizona sheriff and discusses these kinds of issues: https://youtu.be/GdYAYgbf5Uc?si=RD8b8NTfxsyv0urz

There’s also a Texas sheriff video, but the Arizona video is more interesting IMO because the sheriff knows more about how immigration law impacts border enforcement.