In One Image No Exit By Federico Rios
On floor after floor of Panama City’s soaring Decapolis Hotel, people huddled around the windows of rooms they could not leave.
They were among roughly 300 migrants from all around the world, deported by the United States to Panama. There, they were barred from leaving the hotel or meeting lawyers.
Two women from Cameroon and a family of Iranians stood by the glass here. One woman held up a napkin with the words “HELP US” written on it.
Two Iranian families, converts to Christianity, gathered in this room, all but one person terrified of letting their faces be seen. At night they prayed together.
Several women in this room wore the gray sweatshirts typically issued in U.S. detention centers. Some made frantic gestures or tried to shout. The thick glass muted their voices.
Two deportees from India slept with the TV on, as though tourists free to use the hotel pool or visit the casino across the street. But armed guards prevented them from leaving, out of sight.
Between partly opened curtains, a young girl sometimes moved shyly into view, illuminated by a flickering TV. Several of the detainees are children.
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No Exit
In furtive messages, sent through handmade signs, hidden phones and gestures behind glass, some of the migrants expressed a sense of constant, overwhelming fear.
Most did not want their faces to be seen, fearful of repercussions for being photographed by journalists. We did as much window-to-window communication as we could.
In the central room, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old migrant from Iran, scrawled “Help” on the window in lipstick. She was one of the few who did not conceal their face.
Outside, my colleague, the New York Times reporter Julie Turkewitz, held up a notebook with her phone number, written for the migrants to see from their rooms — and message if they could.
We learned that the 10 Iranian migrants had converted to Christianity, which according to Iran’s Shariah law, is a crime punishable by death. They had illegally entered the United States in the last month, and were detained in San Diego before being deported to Panama.
We learned, too, that many of the migrants had arrived at the U.S. border from such countries as Afghanistan and China, hoping to seek asylum. Now they are trapped in Panama, where the Trump administration sent them because those nations will not accept them, or for other reasons.