Forum From the Archives: Caitlin Dickerson on the Darién Gap’s Humanitarian Catastrophe

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Darién Gap, the perilous mountain region connecting Central and South America, was thought for centuries to be all but impossible to cross. But now, hundreds of thousands of migrants are doing just that to reach the U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson took three trips to the Darién Gap over five months, following groups of migrants on their 70-mile trek from northern Colombia into southern Panama. They risked hunger, thirst, drowning, disease, violence, sexual assault and death. We talk to Dickerson about what she witnessed and what she calls the “flawed logic” of U.S. immigration policy – “that by making migration harder, we can limit the number of people who attempt it.” Her new article in the Atlantic is “Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap.” Guest: Caitlin Dickerson, staff writer, The Atlantic; Dickerson won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on immigration; her new article is "“Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:01.8	The Darien Gap, a treacherous jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, was thought for centuries to be virtually impassable.
1:09.3	But now hundreds of thousands of migrants are attempting
1:11.6	the perilous journey, risking hunger, drowning, disease, and violence to ultimately make it to the U.S.
1:17.7	We listen back to my conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson,
1:22.7	who took three trips to the Darien Gap, following migrants on their 70-mile trek.
1:26.9	She writes about the
1:28.1	quote, humanitarian catastrophe she witnessed and the policy failures that have driven people
1:32.4	there for the Atlantic's September cover story, 70 miles in the Darian Gap. Join us.
1:43.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Nina Kim. The U.S. has tried for years to discourage migration by pressuring Latin American countries to close established migration routes, but that's driven migrants to more dangerous or deadly alternatives. And one of those perilous routes is the Darien Gap. Once considered impassable,
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