The Atlantic’s September Cover Story: Caitlin Dickerson Reports on “Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap,” and the Impossible Path to America

For The Atlantic’s September cover story, “Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap,” staff writer Caitlin Dickerson provides a deep exploration and first-person account of the journey through the Darién Gap, a route north that 800,000 migrants will make this year alone. Due to the extreme difficulty of its jungle terrain, the Gap was long considered unpassable. Yet this path has exploded in popularity in recent years, because migrants lack other options to get to the United States. Two years after her Pulitzer Prize–winning cover story exposed the secret history of the Trump administration’s family-separation policy, Dickerson, with this article, once again provides essential reporting around the current state of immigration in the United States. The cover story is online now in English and Spanish.

Joined by the renowned photographer Lynsey Addario, Dickerson undertook two harrowing crossings of the Darién Gap and made three reporting trips over the course of five months. She and Addario documented the stories of families and individuals making the trek. Children under 5 are the fastest-growing demographic making this journey, where snakes, drowning, steep falls, flash floods, and dehydration are all possible, as is sexual violence and death. Dickerson writes, “Crossing the jungle can take three days or 10, depending on the weather, the weight of your bags, and pure chance. A minor injury can be catastrophic for even the fittest people.”

Dickerson also takes a wider look at the policies that have led to this moment. Migration deterrence has only resulted in criminal organizations filling the void: “The Gulf Clan, which now calls itself Ejército Gaitanista de Colombia, effectively controls this part of northern Colombia. It has long moved drugs and weapons through the Darién Gap; now it moves people too,” she writes. Cartels advertise their services as guides on social media, misleading migrants about the treacherousness of the journey. Dickerson writes, “Each year, Panamanian authorities remove dozens of bodies from the jungle. Far more are swallowed up by nature. These deaths are the result not only of extreme conditions, but also of the flawed logic embraced by the U.S. and other wealthy nations: that by making migration harder, we can limit the number of people who attempt it. This hasn’t happened … Instead, more people come every year. What I saw in the jungle confirmed the pattern that has played out elsewhere: The harder migration is, the more cartels and other dangerous groups will profit, and the more migrants will die.”

Dickerson’s reporting emphasizes the life-and-death stakes of crossing the Gap, where mass graves suggest higher death tolls than official statistics describe. Dickerson writes, “Panamanian authorities have offered conflicting accounts of the number of bodies recovered from the jungle—ranging from 30 to 70 a year. But these appear to be significant undercounts. In one remote community called El Real, Luis Antonio Moreno, a local doctor, told me that a mass grave dug in 2021 had quickly filled with hundreds of migrant bodies—double if not triple the reported numbers. Moreno has operated El Real’s run-down hospital for 18 years. Its morgue is one of several in the area where bodies are taken after they are removed from the jungle. Moreno said he has processed the remains of people ‘from every country and every age.’ Some arrive with their identification documents still protected in plastic baggies they had been carrying with them. Others are just bones.”

Caitlin Dickerson’s “Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap” was published today at TheAtlantic.com. Please reach out with any questions or requests to interview Dickerson or Addario on their reporting.

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