Main Illegal Immigration Route Left Ravaged. Where Are the Environmentalists?

We have witnessed it time and time again. Leftists who initiate their disastrous policies but never seem to be able to look at the long-term effects of those decisions. It's as if they are incapable of seeing beyond next week. We were told that the invasion at the southern border was just people looking for a better life. But in reality it was also a large number of criminals looking to prey on American citizens. Leftists constantly lecture us about the importance of the environment. Now, another long-term effect of illegal immigration is coming to light, but those same harping environmentalists don't seem to be anywhere to be found.

The Darien Gap once traversed by thousands of illegal immigrants daily, is now largely deserted—but officials in Panama face a $12 million cleanup of the human waste, trash, and pollution they left behind. https://t.co/8q6Gmnn8ul
— yourNEWS.com (@yourNEWS_com) May 6, 2025

The vast jungle region between Colombia and Panama, known as the Darien Gap, was a major route for illegal immigrants coming from South America to get to the U.S. But as you might expect, anywhere there are a lot of human beings, they leave behind remnants. In the case of the Darien Gap, illegal immigrants left behind loads of garbage, gasoline, and human waste. South American officials say the result is a substantial environmental crisis.

It's not hard to do the math. The nearly 3,000 illegal immigrants passing through the region daily left around 2,500 pounds of trash. The cleanup bill for that pile of garbage totals around $12 million. Juan Carlos Navarro, Panama's Environmental Minister, rightly stated:

“[The United States is] not cleaning up their mess. If the United States is responsible because it opened its borders, then the United States should pay for it.”

Since President Donald Trump took office, illegal immigrant travel through the Darien Gap has all but stopped, and is at its lowest point since February of 2021. In March of 2025, there were just 194 illegal immigrants, compared to March of 2024, when there were 36,841. In April, I reported on the economic effect on residents of the area. Those who owned boats charged as much as $40 per person, putting 20 people in a boat to ferry them across waterways in the Gap. That source of income has dried up. But what's worse is the effects on the health of residents.

The rate of migrant crossings through the Darien Gap in Panama has seen a dramatic decline of 99 percent since Trump took office#Trump47 pic.twitter.com/6IfEdqYoKe
— Sandy (@SD73660) April 19, 2025

In small towns surrounding the Darien Gap, like Villa Caleta, residents fear bathing in the Turquesa River due to the large amount of trash. Many of the communities' main food source, fish, is contaminated by gas from boats. There is also the occasional floating decomposing body. One community leader, Cholino de Gracia, grimly stated, “We can’t fish anymore because you’d practically be eating a fish full of gasoline.” But even more dangerous than the things residents can see are the things they can't see. Testing of the river water shows hazardous levels of contamination from large amounts of fecal coliform bacteria, normally associated with human waste.

De Gracia claims that the Panamanian government has overlooked the area for years and has not addressed existing water pollution or engaged in any development that might make recovery for the region a bit quicker. But Environmental Minister Navarro seems to lay much of the blame at the feet of the Biden administration, saying, “This is a treasure trove of biodiversity. They’ve disrupted the whole system of life in this community and damaged some of them forever."

Also Read: A Biden-Era Income Source Has Dried Up, Leaving Some Who Just Tried to Earn a Living 'Dead Broke'

So, the million-dollar question is, where are the environmentalists? Shouldn't someone have foreseen such an environmental catastrophe? The answer to that is, they did. But because the same people who forever lecture us on the environment are also the same people who wanted to import a new population of cheap labor, and new Democrat voters to the U.S., destroying the Darien Gap and the people who live there was just a bit of collateral damage. Environmentalists only care about the environment when they can make money from it. The people who live in the Darien Gap are poor. More easy leftist math.

Sadly, for the residents of the Darien Gap region, Panamanian authorities say the environmental mess left by the Biden administration may take years to clean up.

Migrant crossings through once-overrun Darien Gap plummet 99% under Trump’s border crackdown https://t.co/lvIcluvr3g pic.twitter.com/nkV360vwC7
— New York Post (@nypost) April 11, 2025

Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.

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