A dispatch from the perilous Darién Gap

Front Burner

NOTE: In yesterday’s episode, we promised to bring you a conversation with a man who’s spent the last year in Gaza, both living through and reporting on Israel’s military campaign there. We were logistically unable to bring you that today, but we will do so as soon as we possibly can.

For decades, the Darién Gap, a jungle crossing straddling the Colombia and Panama border, was considered impossible to cross.

Today, it’s a path that many migrants take, risking their lives, to try and make it to the United States. Eight hundred thousand people are expected to use it this year, nearly 200,000 of them are children.

This is all happening at a time when immigration is among the most pressing issues for voters in the upcoming U.S election, with presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The Atlantic’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Caitlin Dickerson recently took three trips to the Darién Gap over the course of five months.

She spoke to host Jayme Poisson about her report, Seventy miles in hell, which focuses the experiences of those caught in the middle of this ongoing immigration debate.

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