It Could Happen Here - CZM Rewind: The Green Hell: Migration Through the Darién Gap

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

In the first of five episodes, James describes his journey to the Darién gap in Southern Panama, and the journeys that thousands of migrants take each week on one of the most dangerous land migration routes on earth. Original Air Date: 10.28.24 Sources: https://www.notiparole.com https://www.instagram.com/p/DAaDkSwh1Jk/?igsh=bmgyanBteW10czd5 https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/20/archives/a-new-canaldug-by-atom-bombs-nuclear-energy-is-the-key-to-replacing.html https://www.themanual.com/outdoors/darien-gap-feature/ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/18/panama-darien-gap-jose-raul-mulino https://americasquarterly.org/article/the-darien-gaps-fearsome-reputation-has-been-centuries-in-the-making/ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/27/the-darien-gap-a-deadly-extension-of-the-us-border https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/jmhs.pdf https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/20/snakes-swamps-whisky-british-explorers-went-ultimate-boys-adventure/ https://www.strausscenter.org/publications/asylum-processing-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-august-2024/ https://www.gob.mx/inm/prensa/el-gobierno-mexicano-y-el-inm-articulan-corredor-emergente-de-movilidad-segura-para-el-traslado-de-personas-extranjeras-con-cita-cbp-one https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-23/kidnapping-and-escape-of-95-ecuadorian-migrants-in-chiapas-if-you-continue-informing-we-will-return-them-in-bags.html https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Asylum-Policies-Harm-Black-Asylum-Seekers-FACTSHEET-formatted.pdf https://respondcrisistranslation.org/en/newsb/cbp-ones-obscene-language-errors-create-more-barriers-for-asylum-seekers https://www.msf.org/lack-action-sees-sharp-rise-sexual-violence-people-transiting-darien-gap-panamaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit

Gentleman'scuturban.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? Who catfishes a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains? Is that the plot of Footloose? I'm comedian Rory Scoville,

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My bestselling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie. And now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by Yours Truly. The Big Short Story, what it means to be a big short story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at Hushkin.fm slash audiobooks, or wherever

audiobooks are sold. CallZone Media The most difficult part of the journey is when You are trekking and you meet dead bodies on the road. It makes you weep. You makes you cry. But there's only one focus in the forest. A hurt.

You have to keep going. You see mothers, children, they're crying just to have a sip of water. It is not easy. A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting beside the Tukesa River, on a warm afternoon in late September, making silly faces at a two-month-old baby as we both marveled at the cloud of yellow butterflies. Anywhere else on Earth, it could be an idyllic summer day,

but in these final steps to the journey across the Dalian Gap, it's hard to open up your mind to experience joy. I'd only been in the tiny Embara village of Baho Chiquito a couple of days, and I'd already seen the lifeless body of a little girl, as other migrants carried her into town. The river I was sleeping around him with this group of migrants resting here in the shade had swept sleeping children to their deaths earlier this year, and upstream of me there were at least three people's remains. Here, it was Shindip, but crossing upstream, where it's above head height and rages down out of the mountains and steep ravines, was, the migrants I walked back to town with told, me, the stuff of nightmares. The voice you just heard was a migrant from Cameroon who called himself James. That's not his real name, and astute listeners will have noticed that it is my real name. But for the protection of James and his family, it's a name we'll be using. When I met James,

we were in a migrant reception centre called Las Blancas to the north of the Dalaiian gap. To get there, one has to take a dugout canoe called a Piragua from Baho-Chiquito. The voyage takes five hours, and for that five hours, migrants are packed 15 to a boat, wearing bright orange life jackets. They share the boat with an Embra-Piraguerro who sit to the back, driving the boat with a two-stroke motor, and a guide who sits on the front, using a pole when necessary to push the boat through shallow sections. The Embara people are indigenous to the area that's commonly known as a Dalian Gap, or at least to this part of it, and the tiny Embra village of Bajo Chiquito, is a first settlement migrants' encounter as they emerge from the perilous

crossing of the jungle that divides Central America from South America and thousands of people from a better future. There's a morale patch that a Panamanian Border Patrol and military wear on their uniforms. There reflects a slogan in a government messaging campaign. Darienno is a route, it's a jungle, it says. The campaign was launched in August and it translates to the Darien isn't a route, or maybe a road to better translation. It's a jungle. Obviously, it's actually both. But this is like no route most of us would be familiar with. The dark and foreboding jungle I saw in Baja Gito is one of the most impenetrable on Earth,

and the crossing of it is among the most dangerous land migration routes. In the 1970s, the British Army sent its most experienced explorers to find a way through the gap. Their commander called the gap a god-forsaken place. Today, migrants have their own names for it. or sometimes the green hell. Here's a group from Cameroon, explaining why they didn't see a future there and they decided to take this dangerous route.

We are coming from Cameroon. My name is Powers. There's a lot of crises in our country. There's a civil war going on in Cameroon right now because our president, President Pombie has been in power for over 42 years. So I was the Anglophone. We started revolting for him to step down because he doesn't develop the Southern American

Sorry, the English section of Cameroon. Yeah, the Anglophone. Yeah, the Anglophone section. So we revolt. Insta, he was sending the military and he was killing the citizens of our country. There's a lot of hardship, a lot of dead. I, for one, I've lost everybody.

I lost all of my family, my mom, my dad, my two brothers, and I'm the only one left. So things are no moment. There's no job. I've completed school, but there's nothing for me to do. So that's why he decided to migrate. To get to Bajojikito from Colombia, as James and other migrants did, there's no road you can take. You can't even take a boat or a train.

Instead, you have to walk the Darien Gap, an area of rainforest and mountains that is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. For anywhere between two and 15 days, migrants trek through waste-high mud and rivers deeper than they are tall. They must climb giant boulders, cross perilous ravines, and to a traverse. reverse sheer cliff faces. All of this was barely any water than what they can carry, little to no food, inadequate clothing and terrible footwear, and no medical attention. They must walk past dead bodies and past people who might soon become dead bodies as they beg for help. They carry their children, their dreams, and sometimes each other across mountains and rivers, and in Bahia Tukito, they take what for many of them will be the final steps of this part of their journey.

It's a journey that few of us can imagine, and they were lucky to be able to avoid. My own migration to the US 16 years ago was much simpler and safer. But for migrants like James, the journey's worth it, because what they're leaving behind is worse. Here's James describing the situation in the state of Cameroon. The situation in Cameroon is, how can I put it, very, very, very difficult, especially in the Anglophone part of the country. Yeah, because for about five to six years, there's a war, ongoing war in the Anglophone crisis.

Yeah, so there has been fighting, there's been shooting, killings. I myself speaking to you here. I've been targeted. My cousin was shot and with his husband were shot together. Both of them were nurses and they were shot by the army that were there to protect the people. So the situation back at home is very, very tense. Yeah.

It's very, very tense. When you see most of camera, Iranians traveling, taking the rigs part from Colombia, Brazil, right up to where I am. It is not because they like it. It is because of the situation back at home. And most of it, and most of the time, it is the Anglophone population that is suffering. Most of them, they choose this part because they will not have a direct visa to America. Yeah. It's very hard to get one, right? Yes, it's very, very difficult. So they have to use the hard way, which is the only way.

The truth is that dead bodies, terrible stories and families celebrating the end of their walk is nothing out of the ordinary in Bajojikito. The Embaratown, with the population of just 590, is a place I've been trying to come to for almost as long as I've been writing about migration. There are a few stories in my time as a journalist that I've been pitching for close to a decade. Most of the time, I give up if there are no bites after a few months. And that's why you won't see me write about the people who try to hire mercenaries to intimidate voters in 2020, or the Burmese rebels who funded their revolution with co-op-produced

tea, or a surfing team in the Gaza Strip, and on reflection, you probably won't hear about that last one anywhere now. The media cycle has a way of coming around to these stories eventually, sure, but I'm not really one to go back to editors who didn't give a shit about people before and only care about their stories now because they get more traffic. But there's one story I've never given up on, and that's the story of the Dalyen Gap. and the people who risks their lives crossing it for a shot at the American dream. And at this point, I do want to acknowledge that I'm incredibly grateful to the people I work with for trusting me

when I ask them to pay for me to disappear in a dog-out canoe into the jungle and come back two weeks later with a story. The daddy-in looms in the stories of migrants I meet at the U.S. border as a sort of heart of darkness on what is a very difficult and dangerous journey. It's worse than the freight trains they hop on in Mexico, worse than the crowded buses, worse even than the months of waiting for an asylum appointment. I firmly believe that you can't really understand and write about things you haven't seen, smelt and heard. So for years I've been asking the editors to send me to the tiny and bar community on the banks of the river

so that I could share the final steps of this horrific journey with the people who see little option but to risk their lives for a better future for their children. Because the US refuses to create more legal pathways, people instead take the sodden pathways straight up and down the mountains of the dairy and rainforest. The journey will take them past the corpses of the people who never left. The terrain is too fierce for anyone to carry the remains out, so they must simply rot there as a reminder to migrants that they must keep going. It's a sort of deterrent through death that has been the unofficial and official U.S. border policy for decades. to turn or not, once you're in the Darien, there's no turning back and the lack of escape routes has made the gap popular among criminals who commit untold numbers of sexual assaults, murders and armed robberies

every year in the jungle. Despite this, more than half a million migrants made a perilous journey last year, and if many, if not more, will do so this year. To understand the Dalian, you have to first understand US immigration policy, which is something I talk about a lot on this podcast. I want to include here a clip from Amos, a migrant from North Africa, who met my friends and helped them build shelters in Acumba last year, explaining his journey to the United States.

So another route right now, which is a difficult route, is through Brazil, because Brazil has, I don't know if you guys know, and I think they do that for Americans too. Yeah, so Brazil has sort of, I don't know the word, But equivalency, that means, if you impose a visa on Brazil, Brazilians will impose a visa on you. They do that to Americans too. So, you know, when I'm from, they don't have a visa as far as for Brazilians.

So a lot of Africans can go to Brazil and from Brazil take the route all the way. Like Amos, James couldn't fly here directly, but he was able to get a little bit closer to the U.S. by flying to Colombia. I'll let him explain how he pulled that off. For me to have a pass to Colombia, it was not easy. So we had to, there was a female under 20 World Cup that was taking place in Colombia. So we had to go to Colombia as football fans. That's why they had to give us our visa.

All right, from Colombia, we'll find our way out of the airport to where we are today. Most of migrants from outside of continental America will have to travel to Brazil, just like Amos. Here's one account. I'll let the speakers introduce themselves. My name is Somayev. I'm from Iran. My name is Mohaddegh, Faramirang. My name is Ali, and I'm from Iran. They told me why they left Iran. But I'm sure many of you can word that went out for yourself, so we won't include it here.

How did you come from Iran to here? Do you go for Turkey? It was so difficult, and we came from Iran, Tehran to Dubai, after that's Sao Paulo, Brazil. And after that Bolivi, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nekukkli, and jungle, Panama, here in Panama. And it was so difficult. for us because we are young, we just leave our family, my sister, my mother, father. It was so emotional and it was so hard for us. But because of the freedom, because we can speak in our country, you know, if you speak in your street, something like it, they will arrest you to...

Yeah, in the jail. When you are not Muslim, when you will be like something like a Christian or... something else. They'd be arrested. Yes, it was so, so, so, so difficult living in Iran. But it's a wonderful country, but not government. When I talk to migrants, I always want to offer them the chance to share their stories in ways that they want to share them. And I asked them what they would want to say if they could talk directly to Americans. It's a question I ask a lot, because in all the coverage of migration I've seen in this country, I rarely see migrant's voices.

I'm very familiar with being the only journalist in a place, and I would be lying if I said I didn't prefer it that way. But I do always feel obliged to use the platform I have here to give people a chance to share their stories, their voices, and their struggles. So here's their message to you. We love you, hope too, you love this. Yes, that's hard, Christian. Yeah.

No, I think that's very good. It will be our next home. And we should be proud of that, we should be work for that, we should be an real American for the country. They know women are very bad situation, have a bad situation in Iran. Yeah. For all people, that is same, but for women, it's very, very, very hard. I think American people know about Mahzaa. And they really, they kill us. Really, they kill women for simple things.

I heard hundreds of stories like this in my time in Bahájukito and the Las Blancas Migrant Reception Center that migrants travel to after they arrive in Bahá'u Chiquito. People left horrific things behind them and saw horrific things on their journey. But they all remained hopeful for a better future in America. These journeys, in some cases, can take a year or more. One Nepali man I met in Bahra Tjikito had spent 13 months just to get that far. And among his group, his journey had been the fastest. As long as these journeys are, the Darien often stands out as a hardest part of them.

To understand why, I want to take you back to that shady spot by the river. Just a few minutes south of Baha Jigita. So what I'm doing right now, as you can hear from my footsteps, is I'm doing what I told me not to do. I'm walking along the migrant trail. Lots of like vines and creepers. Oh, fucking hell.

That's me nearly eating shit. There's little bits of tape marking a trail. I think they just come down the river here. Some local guys are pushing out wheelbarrows along the trail to dump trash. There's trash. everywhere. It's a fucking mess. The little wood arrows that they've carved just outside town

to direct people into town. And up ahead I can see migrants making what's probably, hopefully their final crossing of the river here. One thing I noticed was that as soon as I got out of sight near shot of the town, the jungle seemed a lot more intimidating. I'm someone who spends a lot of time at the mountains, and I grew up playing in the woods. I'm comfortable outdoors. And I frequently camp and hike for days on my own.

I like it better that way. And I'm honestly more comfortable, 40 feet under the sea, free diving, or three hours from the nearest road, than I am in a busy city sometimes. But in the jungle, after all the stories I'd heard that week, I was afraid. I give it scary. I don't know why. I mean, everything's new to me. I'm, you know, relatively comfortable in the outdoors. But there's new animals, there's new plants.

I don't know what's poisonous. I don't know what's going to kill me and know who's going to try and hurt me I've got another fucking horse Jesus wept I'm jumping out my skin everything now it's funny

I'm in a place that's beautiful you know like these bird of paradise prance are just growing here gorgeous and there's horses that belong to people of the Embra community I suppose

is having snacks, you know, eating jungle horse food. And here I am at the river. It's wide here. It's sort of shallow and it's been dammed up a little bit with rubbish. It's like flop some and jets, some kind of stuff. And then this is where people cross because of that little dam, but it's still got some force to it. Like you wouldn't want to fall and crack your head.

Or, you know, a lot of these folks can't swim. Even without the fear, it's hard going. is you've only hiked on trails, you perhaps don't realize how much work goes into making that surface possible. There are no trail crews in the derrient, and as a result, every step has a potential to result in a sprained ankle or another injury, which might sound trivial, but can be fatal in such a remote and challenging place.

Trail is all rocks, like maybe rocks the size of a fist. Well, that way nice. And then there are sort of in this area, we only have the lower canopy, so we have ferns, we have reeds, we have reeds, It's bamboo plants growing really tall and straight. That's what they use for the poles, so they're pyraguas. And then sort of low, grassy kind of plants. And then where the migrants walk is just just muddy trail,

that every time it rains just turns into like ankle-to-kneed deep mud. I could see them making pretty slow progress along the trail towards me. At the end of the day, as I took a piraigua back to Maraganti, where I would be staying the night. I reflected again on this. and the incredible tenacity it took for people with little outdoor experience and terrible equipment to pass through the jungle.

You know, I'm a fit person. I run ultramarathans. They used to exercise for a living. And it's fucking hard. It's wet. Everything's wet all the time. If you're wet from the rain, then you're wet. If you're wet from the sweat, then you're wet.

If you cross rivers, you get wet. You just can't stay dry. And everyone's feet are just thucked when they get into town, like the size of the blisters I've seen. Like, one lady had a cramp today where, like, it just locked up a whole, like, I grabbed her as she was falling down, and I was able to, like, hold her up. But people are really pushing themselves physically as well as psychologically. That river crossing, south of Bahadjikizu, was as far south as I was going to be able to get

without being forcibly adjacent from Panama. And my request to take a boat or walk further south was denied by the Panamanian Ministry of Security. So the only part of the migrant's journey I would share with them, with their last kilometre or so, their walk. Even then, I wasn't really supposed to be leaving town at all, so several times over the days I spent in Bahra Tjikita, I would look over my shoulder, hop down the riverbank, jump across the stream, and lightly jog out of town.

Once on the trail, I'd start to walk slowly and try and wave at groups of upcoming migrants. I didn't want to scare them. I offered to carry their bags and lent any help I could supporting them as they walk towards their first meal and clean drink of water in up to a week. I'm Stefan Curry and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com. or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older.

Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentleman's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know?

What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime.

Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch And it freaks you out He has x-ray vision How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me

He can see right through me Listen to Crimeless On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts Or wherever you get your podcast Michael Lewis here My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup And burst of the U.S. housing market Back in 2008

It follows a few unlikely But lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up.

The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition

for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience. But it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry,

and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like, in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance,

and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just getting to Bahchiquita was a journey in itself for me. I took two flights, a five-hour drive,

which was evenly split between paved roads, roads that aspired to pavement, and dirt roads. At the end of our road journey, the Pan-American Highway that links Alaska to Argentina, seems to give up on fighting the jungle and peters out. Asphalt turned to worse asphalt, which turned to dirt, which turned to mud, which led us to a river.

A driver, however, was prepared for this. The drive here was mad. Like, that road was fucked. We're in this tiny little car. The driver took off his shoes and socks to conduct the more technical section of the drive, which I thought was quite amusing.

Yeah, really steep. Lots of holes, lots of potholes. I just really rutted out, a kind of dirt road. And then we got here and talked to some guys, negotiated a price and told him where we wanted to go. And they said, yeah, sure, buy some water. You know, there's no water on the way, about three hours. And so we bought some water right there.

And, yeah, here we are on the boat now. As you can hear, I recorded this on a pit aqua. It's a kind of dug-out canoe, with the hull made out of a single tree and a two-stroke motorboat. bolted on the back. It's the only way to travel here other than on your feet, and it's the only way the Embara can get the produce igro to market. The skill of the Piragueros, the people who drive the Piraugas, is incredible. They navigate parts of the river so shallow that they have to

pull up the two-string motor, and I noticed all the motors have propellers that are covered in chips and bashes from smacking into the rocks at the bottom. In the bow of the boat, I sat on top of my giant rucksack, marvelling at the birds, insects, and foliage of the jungle. And occasionally I jumped up to make fairly useless contributions with the boat's bamboo pole, under the close supervision of Marcellino, our driver and our soon-to-be host, who mostly just laughed at me as I leaned my whole way into the pole, which knows but he slipped, and I tried to avoid falling face-first into the chocolate-brown water. On the way to Bar, Chiquito, we passed several small and but our villages.

Little children waved at us from the banks Or from the shallows of the river where they washed and played Adults looked on, a doubtless one of one nurse a six-foot-three white dude was doing going the wrong way on the river for a migrant But they smiled and waved back anyway After an overnight flight, a five-hour drive And three hours in a dugout canoe We rounded a corner in the river

Baja Kito came into view Over the last few years It's reorientated itself from a tiny indigenous village to an unofficial reception centre for migrants. On my hopelessly outdated topo map, the area has nothing but contours and green shading. No roads, no trails, no markers of human existence at all. And perhaps that's how the state sees this place.

The Dallien is as real to most Panamanians as Sesame Street or Jurassic Park. But for the emperor, this has been their home since long before Panama and Columbia and even maps existed. A few dozen houses in the village, mostly built on stilts to avoid the seasonal floods, now offer up their rooms as hostels for the migrants. Some of them have enclosed their bottom floor using plywood or cinder blocks. Others have strung hammocks from their support posts.

For four or five bucks, migrants can get their first good night sleep since they left Nek-or-Klee in Colombia as much as a week before. Along the main street, which is really just a raised concrete footpath about a meter across, you can buy a meal at any of half a dozen places for five bucks. You can get an hour of Wi-Fi for a dollar or charge your phone for the same price. Cold drinks for a dollar as well are one of the many front rooms

that have turned into small kiosks. And that's where the migrants I've been sitting down with at the river went when they arrived into town. I let them be for a while. I went off to interview more migrants. About a thousand of them arrive in this village every day. Each year since a pandemic has seen

record numbers arrive. And the little village on the side of a hill surrounded by palm trees and full of smiling children in their traditional brightly colored palumas, chasing chickens and dogs, has welcomed every one of them. About a thousand of them arrive in this town every day. To get here, they also take a boat. From Nekokli, across the Gulf of the Darien, they cross on small motorboats to Capogana or Candil. Those are both towns on the western side of the Gulf of Darien. From there, they begin their walk. Even though they're now north of the Gulf, they're still in Colombia,

and on the Colombian side of the border, they're guided by guides to whom they pay several hundred dollars and in return receive protection and a wristband that ensures they can walk without being robbed. Nobody I spoke to had made it this far without paying a guide. The area is largely under the control of the Gulf cartel, several of members of which were sanctioned by the USA while I was in the jungle. The migrants I spoke to didn't really have much bad to say about this part of their experience, but universally acknowledged that the next part was where they really confronted their fears and nightmares about the Darien. Here's one Venezuelan migrant sharing his experience.

That's nothing compared to what comes from the border to hear. Yes, the road is better. And I say that the danger is less too. And they have everything you need there. You come prepared, you have, you come with water. And there are also many ravines where you can drink water. Well, there are springs that come from the mountain. But from the border on, it's pretty ugly.

It's a stretch from the Colombian-Panamanian border at a place that they call Las Banderas, which means the flags, to Baja Chiquito, where migrants suffer the most. There, they can't drink from the river because the human waste and human remains that constantly fill it make the water deadly. They must walk on unmaintained trails

that often turn is in deep mud. They only have the supplies they carry, which often run out or they jettison to stave away. on the incredibly steep mountain path. They climb and descend those mountains across rivers, often without eating or drinking for days at a time. On the trail they pass by the bodies of their fellow travellers as a constant reminder of the risk they're taking.

If you ask people in Panama City, they'll tell you that Dalian is closed now. Your President, Jose Raul Molino, was elected on a promise to shut down the gap, end the humanitarian crisis, and deport more migrants with US funding. And that funding has certainly arrived, with more than 6 million already spent since he took office in July. Since then, Panama has deported more than 1,100 people to Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, and India.

Each of these has been funded by US taxpayers. Obviously, the jungle isn't closed and it can't really be closed. But in an interview before he was elected, Molino said that the border of the United States, instead of being in Texas, has moved to Panama. And that is something he can do with US support. I spoke to some Vedas Way and ladies, they helped them carry their bags, because it's a steep hill, and they were saying that no one had seen any barriers. We don't know anything about any barriers or any fences in a Darien.

And, like, they hadn't heard it was closed. Evidently, it's not. I'm standing in front of 100 people who just got off a boat from the Darien. Hugh Prist aside, the rhetoric of closing the Dalian signals a turn, not just in Panamanian politics. but in the way the world sees and handles migration. The US has always sought to externalize its borders, from US train, border patrol officers in Dominican Republic

along the border with Haiti, to DHS agents deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. As migration has become more politicized, the US has sought to move its enforcement away from prying eyes and from compassion and instead brought more trauma to a place that is already so hard. I've spent much of the last decade of my life watching the story, tried to bring the mountains and desert close to where I live under its control. I've stood with Kumiye people as the government dynamited their graveyards.

I found border wall contractors lost deep in the mountains. I've driven the impossibly steep concrete roads that they built, worried about my truck turning end on end. I've seen billions of dollars thrown at these mountains. And I've seen people with $20-dollar angle grinders or ladders made of old pallets defeat the wall in moments. Trying to close borders doesn't work at home. and it won't work in the Dalian Gap either.

Just building the roads to get the construction equipment into the gap is a gargantuan task. In any attempt to create a barrier across a 60 kilometre wide wilderness area will simply push migrants onto other, more dangerous routes, into places where you can't build, and the places where nobody can rescue you if you fall down or break your leg. That doesn't mean there's nothing the US can do. I saw firsthand the impact of American spending here, as migrants had a reception centre called La Hasblancas had their families torn apart

and men, women and children cried as their parents and partners were taken away for a flight back to Colombia, Cuba or Venezuela that my taxes helped to pay for. I consoled their children with toys and stickers and something to eat as their dads were loaded into a flatbed truck. Our government didn't send money to feed these children, but it seemed to have the funds to fund their parents' deportation. By deporting people from Panama, the US effectively deprives them of much of the due process

they should, in theory, have the right to in the United States. And the US can easily deport them back to places like Cuba and Venezuela, which it considers to be dictatorial regimes. The US does not and cannot stop migration. People have always moved, and people will always want a better future for their children. What it can do is make it as painful and dangerous as possible. But the razor wire barriers in the Dalian Gemp, which I've seen posted on social media, didn't exist for the hundreds of migrants I spoke to.

No one I asked had even seen them. But what they had seen was far worse. There are many rivers that you're forced into all the time. You're putting your life and everything else on the line there. I was worried that the indigenous people would come out and do something to us. In the nights, I was worried that any of the children, God forbid. bid, would have an accident. The same for me. It's horrible to think about it now. This mother had crossed with a five, six, and sixteen-year-old child, the baby of six-month.

They'd all made it in one piece, but the journey clearly had its impact on the children. There are many people who are left out there without food and do not have anything to give to their children. We had food until last night, nothing left now. And we had to, each one had to just eat a little bit because we had nothing else to give them. You can't find anything there. It's in the middle of nowhere. People died right now, along with those who came with us yesterday. How many died yesterday?

Three? I think three died yesterday. One drowned in the river. Yeah. It's really tough. This. No. No.

Nobody should do this. Nobody. We do this out of pure physical necessity to look for a better future for our kids. We can't stay in our country. We couldn't stay in our country. longer there. Here are a couple of the kids I spoke to, or in some cases, the kids who took Mario Gorda and conducted interviews with each other.

The mountains, I was so tired and I couldn't climb anymore, and when I fell in the river, I was really scared. Apparently, the whole thing was like an adventure she'd seen Pepper Pig having, which at once made me giggle, and also one reflection is one of the saddest things. I've ever had to record. I'm sure her mom told her that, to make it easier for her to pass through a terrible place. They're really sure to be at home,

washing Pepper Pig and playing with her friends. No walking past three dead bodies, which are currently decomposing on the trail. She seemed remarkably resilient. She said the long bus ride she'd taken to get there weren't boring, because she enjoyed looking out the window. And the whole journey was, well, I'll let her say it. Her mom gave us a different account.

I didn't want to cry because I didn't want her to see me crying, but sometimes I would explode because it's hard for your child to ask you for water, to ask you for food, and you don't have any. To be in a place where you walk, you walk from 5 in the morning, it's 5 in the afternoon, you're walking, you don't know what to do, going through more than 100 rivers and asking God not to rain

and not wanting it to get worse. It rained, and the girl got a fever. she got a fever but while God is good that we pray a lot I say that we don't know God so much in the church in the process and the process that we are in

and we don't know we can be so strong until we go through that storm and we see that he protects us he knows that he was always there watching over us taking care of us at all times parents being amazed at their children and drawing frank from them and their faith was a common message

I heard from migrants Here's a migrant from Zimbabwe telling me how her daughter inspired her to keep going when she felt like she couldn't walk anymore My daughter, she was strong She was strong But she was crying also

But she had got wounds All over the body Even me, I was crying myself I was like I want to just Put myself in the water Then I can just go Both the journey was tough

Really really tough The mountain The stones The river It's not easy at all It's not very... I don't even recommended someone to say, use daddy and gave...

No. And even myself, I did know about it. Yeah. I was regretting myself. I was crying. I was like, God. I don't know my family. And my family, they don't know where I am right now.

But, like so many other migrants, when the government of the world abandoned her, she found strength in the strangers along the road who wouldn't abandon her. We didn't even eat anything. We're just asking people, can I have a piece of biscuit? They just help us. That's nice.

The other migrants help to you? Yeah, the others. Yeah. Do you think that they treat African people differently? Very nice. Especially these Spanish people, they are very nice. I don't want to like it. Because if you need help, if you call them for help,

the other ones, they might run away, but the other ones, they just come for help. They even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks, give my daughter sweets for energy. They push us like, let's go, guys, let's go, let's go, let's go, you make it. And we really make it. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product.

With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuthuburn.com. Please enjoy responsibly.

Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you?

From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players, comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfish is a city? and meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys.

Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has X-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You know the shade is always Shadiest right here. Season 6 of the podcast Reasonably Shady with Giselle Bryan and Robin Dixon is here dropping every Monday. As two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac were giving you all the laughs, drama, and reality news you can handle. And you know we don't hold back. So come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday. I was going through a walk in my neighborhood.

Out of the blue, I see this huge sign next to somebody's house. Okay. The sign says, My neighbor is a Karen. Oh, what? No way. I died laughing. I'm like, I have to know.

You are lying. It's humongous, y'all. They had some time on their hands. Listen to reasonably shady from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells us. story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become

and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy

and also today's politics. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin.fm.fm. or wherever audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. become more dangerous or close themselves off to migrants entirely. It's a route, the emperor tell me, that started with people leaving India and then Haiti. It grew as conditions in Venezuela became more unsustainable, and people found themselves too poor to stay home and too poor to travel north by any other means. And so they chose a deadly jungle over a future in a country where their votes don't matter.

Last year, as many as half a million people crossed the jungle. This year we might see more. migrants arriving above Jukito spend the day in the village before taking off in a piraigua of their own up to Laha's Blancas to the migrant reception centre I mentioned earlier they register with Panamanian board patrol known by the acronym of Senafront and they call their families to say they survived

then they dry out their blistered feet enjoy the cooking of several of the families who have turned their homes into sort of Erzat's restaurants they sleep on the floors of the houses or underneath them charge their phones for a dollar a time certainly migration has changed this town and I want to talk about that more in tomorrow's episode but despite more than a million people passing through this route

you don't find anti-migrant sentiment here right now despite the gap being a deadly deterrent numbers are expected to reach a record again this year maybe 700,000 people will walk the gap but despite these numbers which may seem high for a small country I didn't really find much anti-migrant sentiment in Panama as a whole There's plenty of it in the US though. And as the United States winds down its war and terror,

it needs a new nebulous enemy to justify its military spending and to keep the security and surveillance companies donating to politicians in their millions. In part, it is found that by simply opening a floodgate of weapons and funding, they can spew forth genocide and death in Palestine and keep some of its income streams. But it needs a more long-term solution. There are only so many Palestinian babies it can bomb

and we'll run out of Palestinians long before we run out of bombs. The USA's new enemy. One it must seek out all over the world. It's a migrant. It's a woman I met carrying her child across the mountains. The little Venezuelan girl throwing bottle caps into a cinder block with me

to pass the time as she asked me questions about America. It's a 21-year-old man whose remains my friends found at the border on a hot day this September. The US will stop at night. nothing confining and destroying the migrant. And just as it did in the war on terror, it will find fast friends in states desperate to avail themselves to the seemingly unlimited flow of resources the U.S. dedicates to keeping its conflicts out of the sites and the minds of its citizens.

The USA's open hostility to migrants isn't something that's unknown here. met knew about it. Several of them had watched with horror, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump argued not about how to treat migrants, but about who could turn more of them away in a recent presidential debate. Every migrant I met had questions about CBP1, about US asylum policy, and about how they could get to the US before a second Trump administration. Despite this, they all clung to their versions of the American dream. They wanted to work and be paid a fair wage, to send their kids to school and maybe to college, to feel safe in their homes, and to be able to speak and dress as they wished without fearing consequences.

All of those things are in peril in this country too, and they know that, but they still feel their dreams are worth the journey. For Noemi, the little girl, who took the daddy in her stride, the American dream was pretty simple. She wanted two things, to see Minnie Mouse and to see her aunt. And what do you want to our United? Studiard?

No, I want to see to my Tia. To your Tia? To my Tia. Look. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website,

Coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman'scuturbin.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentleman's cutbuburn.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? Who catfishes a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains? Is that the plot of footloose?

I'm comedian Rory Scoville, and I'm here to tell you, Josh Dean and I have a new podcast that celebrates the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals It's called Crimless, a true crime comedy podcast. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Greatness doesn't just show up.

It's built. One shot, one choice, one moment at a time. From NBA champion, Stefan Curry, comes shot ready, a powerful never-before-seen look at the mindset that changed the game. I fell in love with the grind. You have to find joy in the work you do when no one else is around. Success is not an accident. I'm passing the ball to you. Let's go.

Steph Curry redefined basketball. Now he's rewriting what it means to succeed. Shot Ready isn't just a memoir. It's a playbook for anyone chasing their potential. Discover stories, strategies, and over 100 never-before-seen photos. Order Shot Ready. Now at stephen Currybook.com. Don't miss Stephen Curry's New York Times bestseller, Shot Ready, available now.

Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Adria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. Even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.