Punjabi social media is full of videos from the jungles of Panama. Recorded by Punjabis from India and Pakistan, these videos make a simple appeal: never take this route, find work in your home country instead.
However, such appeals — and even more horrific videos of the migrants being tortured or dying on the way — leave little impact, as people continue risking everything for the American Dream. Earlier popular in Punjab and Haryana, this “donkey route” is now finding takers in Gujarat too.
‘Dunki’, the upcoming Shah Rukh Khan movie that releases on December 21, is based on such migrants. At a recent event in Dubai, the actor explained the meaning of the movie’s title. “Dunki is an illegal trip a lot of people take to get out of their country across borders all over the world. It is called the Donkey travels.”
First stop: Latin America
The first step in the most popular donkey route from India is to reach a Latin American country. Countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guyana have visa on arrival for Indian citizens. Some other countries, including Brazil and Venezuela, give tourist visas to Indians easily. A migrant’s route also depends on which countries his agent has ‘links’ in — links to human trafficking networks.
Reaching Latin American countries, thus, is not tough. However, it can take months.
“My agent kept us in Mumbai for one-and-a-half months. He said he was waiting for some signal from his links in Brazil, and we would have to spend more if we ended up doing the waiting in Brazil,” said a man from Punjab who reached the US last year in eight months.
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Some agents arrange a direct visa for Mexico from Dubai. However, landing directly in Mexico is considered more dangerous, in terms of arrest by local authorities.
So, most agents land their clients in a Latin American country, and then take them to Colombia. The nearer a country is to the US border, the more difficult it is to get a visa from India.
Crossing a dangerous forest
From Colombia, the migrants enter Panama. This involves crossing the Darién Gap, a dangerous forest between the two countries. Risks here include a lack of clean water, wild animals, and criminal gangs. Migrants can face robbery and even rape in this region — crimes committed here go unreported and unpunished. If everything goes well, the journey takes eight to ten days. If a migrant dies, there is no way to send the body home for last rites.
Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., May 9, 2023. Clothing and garbage litter the migrants’ trail. (AP Photos/Ivan Valencia, File)
Guatemala is a big coordination centre on this route. Migrants are handed over to new traffickers here, to enter Mexico and continue the journey towards the US border.
Now starts the game of hide and seek with government agencies. Gurdaspur youth Gurpal Singh (26) was killed in a bus accident in Mexico while on the way to the US as an illegal immigrant earlier this year. In his last call to his sister back in Punjab, he told her they had been stopped by the Mexican police, and had taken the bus hurriedly to escape. The sister was still on the call when the bus met with the accident.
It took a week before the family was informed of his death. BJP Gurdaspur MP Sunny Deol helped bring back Gurpal’s body.
Possible to avoid the forest, not the risks
There is one more route from Colombia that starts from San Andrés, to avoid the forest in Panama. But it is not much safer. From San Andrés, migrants take boats to Nicaragua, a country in Central America. Fishing boats with illegal migrants go to Fisherman’s Cay, around 150 kilometers from San Andrés. From there, migrants are transferred onto another boat to move forward to Mexico.
At the US border
The 3,140-km border separating the United States and Mexico has fencing, which the migrants have to jump across. Many choose to cross the dangerous Rio Grande river. However, the US authorities do not pose much of a challenge while crossing the border. It is after crossing over that migrants are detained and then kept in camps. Now, their fate depends on whether US authorities find them fit for asylum.
Members of the National Guard install concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande River to prevent migrants from crossing from Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., December 19, 2023. (REUTERS/Cheney Orr)
A new, safer route
Nowadays, there is another, easier donkey route to the US — many migrants first go to Europe, and from there, directly to Mexico. “It all depends upon the agents’ contacts. It is easier to go through Europe. However, the day the Europe-Mexico route comes under the lens, people will fall back on the traditional route,” said a migrant who crossed nine countries on the donkey route to reach the US.
A journey dangerous and expensive
An average donkey trip may cost between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 40 lakh. But sometimes, the cost is as high as Rs 70 lakh. Some agents promise a less troublesome journey in return for more money.
Agents in India have connections with traffickers all the way to the US. If for some reason, Indian agents fail to make the payment, it can mean a matter of life and death for the migrant. Families often pay in installments. “I had paid in three installments. First before starting. Then after reaching Colombia, and then the last payment was made after we reached near the US border. If my parents had failed in making the payment, traffickers in Mexico would have shot me dead,” a truck driver in the US waiting for his asylum file to be cleared said.
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