Panama has carried out more than 400 deportations from the Darién Gap at a cost of over $2,000 each. Analyses of the Tren de Aragua, fentanyl, and Trump's "mass deportations."

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Note: staff are likely to be testifying in a congressional hearing on Wednesday 25. Preparation for that event will prevent us from posting daily updates again until Friday 27, and we will be unable to produce a Weekly Border Update.

Developments

Between June 5 (when the Biden administration’s restrictive asylum rule went into effect) and September 10, the U.S. government has returned “more than 131,000 individuals to more than 140 countries,” Luis Miranda, the Principal Deputy Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Communications, told the Venezuelan daily Tal Cual.

Panama sent two more deportation flights carrying migrants from the Darién Gap back to their countries of origin: one to Colombia on September 19 and one to Ecuador on September 20. Since the beginning of August, pointed out Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, Panama has run 11 flights, most with U.S. support, that have deported 441 people. The Panamanian daily La Prensa counted 433 people, and a total cost of $900,000 for the 11 flights. That is $2,079 per deported person.

A front page New York Times story examined the presence of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan organized crime gang that may be gaining a toehold in parts of the United States. In the New York area, law enforcement sources told the Times that they first saw signs of the group’s presence in January 2024. Still, “migrants living in city shelters said they had not noticed the gang’s influence there.”

A sensationalistic New York Post story claimed that the Tren de Aragua has turned New York City shelters into “hubs” for their criminal activities.

At the Otay Mesa port of entry east of San Diego on September 18, a CBP officer shot and wounded a man who was advancing while holding a screwdriver and ignoring commands to drop the tool.

Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers told NewsNation of recent cases of migrant smugglers sedating children, usually with over-the-counter medications, when they take them across the border.

The chief of Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector tweeted that a large fentanyl seizure from a vehicle in the neighboring San Diego Sector was an example of what the agency could do “when agents aren’t processing coached asylum claims.”

Analyses and Feature Stories

CBS News’s 60 Minutes program covered trafficking in fentanyl, “the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller recalled that about 90 percent of fentanyl crossing into the United States from Mexico comes in passenger vehicles. It is not brought by undocumented migrants; in fact, two-thirds of those arrested for smuggling the drug are U.S. citizens.

An El País analysis of the Trump campaign’s promise to carry out a “mass deportation” program found that it could cost between $265 billion and $481 billion to carry out. By removing 4.5 percent of the U.S. workforce, it estimates, the promised removal program would slow U.S. GDP growth by more than 9 percentage points while increasing inflation.

An Associated Press analysis of “mass deportation” looked at the legal authorities, like the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, that a re-elected President Trump might use to employ soldiers to remove both undocumented migrants and those whose status his administration would revoke.

“Trump’s bald embrace of xenophobia” in the election campaign leads to the discouraging conclusion that “overtly racist appeals,” well beyond euphemisms, do not harm a candidate’s standing in 2024, concluded an analysis of the current electoral moment by Caitlin Dickerson at the Atlantic.

Border Report’s Sandra Sanchez accompanied volunteers training, with Texas State University’s Operation Identification, to identify the remains of migrants who died near the border in Texas.

Reporting from El Paso’s outskirts, where migrant deaths have been surging, Morgan Lee of the Associated Press found that while the border and migration are big election issues, residents of this and other border zones tend to hold a “nuanced view” and are dissatisfied with perceived inaction from Washington.

At the Atlantic, Paola Ramos profiled Pedro Antonio Agüero, a Mexican-American social media influencer from El Paso who calls himself “Conservative Anthony” and “stalks and confronts people he suspects of being migrants while livestreaming the encounters on his website.”

On the Right