The idea dates back to 2015, whereby the governments of Panama and Costa Rica transport migrants who survive the perilous journey through the Darien Gap through their countries to the next closest to the United States.
The answer to how to replace "Controlled flow" of illegal immigrants with air repatriation lies in the small Panamanian town of Rio Hato: Scarlett Martinez International Airport.
In 1938, 64 miles beyond what was then the western edge of the Panama Canal Zone, the U.S. Army Air Force opened an air base in Rio Hato to support the defense of the canal.
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, Rio Hato was nominally a Panamanian Air Force Base under the Panamanian Defense Forces.
In 2011, in the aftermath of the great recession, then-President Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal's modernization plans for Panama included expanding Tocumen International Airport - Panama's primary one - to focus on business flights and those connecting elsewhere in the Americas, while renovating the airport at Rio Hato to accept commercial passenger air traffic, especially foreign tourists headed to the nearby Pacific beaches.
The lack of passengers at Rio Hato, its near equidistance between the Costa Rica-Panama border and where the Inter-American Highway terminates at the Darien, and its 8,038-foot runway make the airport a natural departure point for repatriation flights for the nearly 700 migrants per day who exit the jungle on the Panamanian side of the Darien Gap.
While Martinelli has declared his candidacy for a second for president, Americans shouldn't have to wait to see how the 2024 elections - in both countries - play out to pursue the use of Scarlett Martinez to deter migrants from coming from South America and beyond through Panama to our Southwest border.
https://cis.org/Celler/Airport-Panama-Could-Be-Used-Repatriation-Flights
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