The migrants refused to be repatriated to their countries. They will be held in a migration facility near the Darien Gap along the Colombian border until third countries can be found to take them.

A group of migrants deported from the U.S. to Panama last week were moved on Tuesday night from a hotel in the capital to the Darien jungle region in the south of the country, a lawyer representing a migrant family told Reuters on Wednesday.

Nearly 100 migrants who had been locked in a Panama hotel were bused to the camp late Tuesday night. “There are fenced cages,” said one of the detainees.

Panama's security minister said on Tuesday that more than half of the migrants deported from the United States to transit points Panama in recent days had accepted voluntary repatriations to their home countries,