BBC Farsi, 1 March 2025
An young Afghan women, travelling alone, has been among the first deported from the US under Trump’s migration policy to Panama and, unable to communicate with the outside world written a message that was photographed by reported.
For those not able to read farsi/Dari, here a quick English translation:
On February 18, while armed members of the Panamanian Air Force were stationed in front of the luxurious Decapolis Hotel in Panama City, refusing to allow journalists to enter, two Afghan refugee girls tried to get their message across to the world by using paper they had taped to a window. The four white A4 sheets of paper, arranged side by side, read in English: “Please save the Afghan girls.”
The two girls, along with five other Afghan girls, were among about 60 people of various nationalities who were deported from the United States.
They were transferred to Panama on three flights as part of the Trump administration’s policy to deport undocumented immigrants.
The BBC spoke to a number of the Afghan and Iranian refugees, including Arezo Behbanou, the girl who had the papers behind the window asking for help.
This is Arezo’s second time in Panama. The first time to go to America, of her own free will, and this time after leaving America, but by force.
She had been traveling for two years and finally arrived in the US about a month ago. Speaking quietly over the phone so that camp officials wouldn’t hear her, Arezo told the BBC: “I traveled through 11 countries to reach the US. I was on the road for a full two years. None of the girls here have been traveling or immigrating for less than two years. Some who used to work for the government withdrew from Afghanistan the day the Taliban came to Kabul, but now, for the fourth year, they are traveling to a safe country.”
With the fall of the previous regime and the rise of the Taliban government, Afghans have taken paths to Europe and the US that they either didn’t use before or were rarely used. One of them was getting a Brazilian visa in Iran, then traveling to South America and from there, passing through more than ten countries, they would reach the US or Canada.
Severe restrictions on women and girls, including a ban on working and continuing their education, are among the things that have forced them to leave their country.
“They treated us like prisoners”
When I asked Arezo about her current situation, she used the word prison eight times to describe it. She said they were “treated like prisoners.” Their cell phones had been taken away and they had not been able to inform their families.
When they were deported from the United States, Arezo said, American officials behaved inappropriately.
“They came in the middle of the night and handcuffed us. We were stunned and didn’t know where they were going to take us. They treated us like prisoners and tied our hands and forced us onto the plane. After about six hours of flight, when the military plane landed, we realized we were in Panama.”
From the airport, they were taken to a hotel in Panama City where they attracted the attention of reporters. They were the first deportees of Donald Trump’s new policy to arrive in Panama.
“When we were in the hotel, we noticed that reporters were outside the hotel and were not allowed to come inside. I wrote a text and put the writing behind the hotel window so that I could somehow make my voice heard from inside. Because we had no access to the phone or the internet. We had no access to social media to raise our voices. And [the photo] was the only opportunity for me to raise my voice that we were in a state of uncertainty.”
Another Afghan girl, who was with Arezo Behbanou during the BBC telephone interview, lamented their plight. She said that so far, “no official has spoken to them about their fate.” She also likened the situation in the camp to that of a prison: “We are completely helpless and this is worrying. The situation is completely unbearable. It is called a camp here, but it is like a prison. No one has access to the telephone. No one has access to the internet. The weather is very hot. There are very few facilities, toilets, bathrooms are all in very bad condition. There is no air conditioning and the weather is very hot. The situation is absolutely appalling.”
I asked them a question that I knew the answer to some extent: what would they worry about if they were sent to Afghanistan?
They replied: “We have no way to return to our country. After the Taliban came, not only do we not have the right to study in our country, but there is also a girl here who has escaped a forced marriage. “She was supposed to be married (forcibly) to someone her grandfather’s age, and she escaped from such circumstances. We are very worried that they will send her back to Afghanistan. They traveled through more than ten countries to reach a safe country and become refugees. Each of these girls spent different amounts on the trip, but none of them spent less than $15,000.”
In Costa Rica, like in Panama: Uncertainty
Under Donald Trump’s new immigration policies, a number of other illegal immigrants have been deported to Costa Rica, a country that borders Panama.
It seems that single people have been deported to Panama and married people with their families to Costa Rica.
Three Afghan families have also been deported among 200 others to a camp in Costa Rica, near the Panamanian border.
The BBC spoke to the father of an Afghan family of three. “We are from several countries. From Afghanistan, we are three families, each family of three, and there are nine of us in total. Two families are from Iran. The rest are from China, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ghana and Jordan. We are all related. The single people were deported to Panama a week before us. I think only the single girls from Afghanistan were deported from the US. The Afghan girls who were deported had already gone to the US with us.”
Like Arezo, they have been returned to the camp where they had lived for a while when traveling to America six months ago.
They were treated similarly when they were deported from the United States: “They chained the men. They chained their legs, waists, and hands together. They put everyone on a bus and took them straight to the airport. They didn’t chain the women and children under 18. Even inside the plane, our hands and feet were tied. When we arrived near the airport in Costa Rica, ten minutes before the plane was to land, they untied our hands and feet. Because there were so many journalists at the airport, they didn’t want us to get off the plane with our hands and feet tied.”
The situation of these Afghan asylum seekers is different from others, such as Iranians. Their passports allow them to easily obtain visas for some countries, including Turkey, but it is very difficult for Afghans to obtain visas even for their neighboring countries, such as Pakistan. Now that they are in South America, this difficulty could be even greater.
On the other hand, since the Panamanian and Costa Rican authorities have not spoken to them (by the time of the interview on February 26), the Afghans do not know what their fate will be, especially since they have no interest in returning to Afghanistan.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 3 Mar 2025
