A little more than a year ago, the small Panamanian river port of Lajas Blancas was filled with a crush of people trying to make their way to the United States.

A stray dog walks in an empty migrant reception center that used to receive hundreds of people every day after they crossed the Darien Gap on their journey north to the United States, in Lajas ...

The Darien Gap, a stretch of nearly impenetrable rain forest along the border with Colombia, was transformed into a migratory ...

Now, the makeshift migrant camp has become a ghost town. More than a thousand migrants a day would cross the harrowing Darien Gap — a rugged jungle passage between Colombia and Panama.

The Darien Gap, a stretch of nearly impenetrable rain forest along the border with Colombia, was transformed into a migratory ...