“Panama cannot end up becoming a black hole for deported migrants,” said Juan Pappier, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Americas. “Migrants have the right to communicate with their families, to seek lawyers and Panama must guarantee transparency about the situation in which they find themselves.”

Officials in Costa Rica and Panama are confiscating migrants' passports and cellphones, denying them access to legal services and moving them between remote outposts as they wrestle with the logistics of a suddenly reversed migration flow.

Panama and Costa Rica are among a number of Latin American nations that have agreed to cooperate with U.S. President Donald Trump as he ramps up his deportation machine and restricts access to asylum in the U.

More than 100 asylum seekers from around the world sent to Panama from the United States have no sense how long they will be held or where they might eventually be sent.

Lawyers for migrants from around the world who were deported from the United States and moved to a remote jungle camp in Panama in recent weeks say they have been unable to communicate with their clients since they arrived there.

Costa Rican authorities have raised concerns about inadequate medical evaluations and the conditions of U.S. deportees held in detention facilities near the Panamanian border