Before going out in Panama, don’t forget your Passport!

Every country has policies in place to prevent undesirables from entering and to keep people from staying longer than they should. Panama is no different, except in the execution. Migracion officers are on a hunt. However, that hunt may have more to do with money than enforcing immigration laws.

Panama’s immigration department is flawed in a number of ways. When the government reduced the tourist visa from 90 days to 30, the government was completely unprepared. Individual immigration officers often had no clue whether to enforce the 30 day policy or the 90 day. The tourist visas that are sold at the airport still showed a validity of 90 days for quite some time after the change. Immediately following the reversal of the reduced stay visa, many officers had no clue once again.

Panama’s immigration department is now using an iron fist and often treating legal tourists like criminals. Walk down Panama City’s Calle Uruguay on a weekend night and be prepared to hand over your passport if you are obviously not Panamanian. Most evenings there is a crew of Migracion officers waiting on street corners for tourists to walk by. In Panama it is the law to carry your passport on you at all times if you are a foreigner. Sometimes you can get away with a copy, sometimes you can’t. Again, very sporadic enforcement. If you don’t have your passport on you, expect to be escorted to your hotel or where ever you left your passport. Once you have satisfied the officer that you are indeed legal, they will usually let you on your way.

Even if you are legal, you could have some problems. I have been stopped by immigration police more times than I can count. Though I am legal, my latest entry stamp on my passport can be a little hard to read. Even though I showed the immigration official my tourist visa (which has the same stamp and the date completely legible), he wasn’t satisfied. If you are not prepared to hand over a small “tip” right away, expect to chat with the officer for quite some time. If you have time to spare and you are legal, this could turn in to an entertaining game. Time how long it takes the guy to get bored with you once he realizes you’re not going to pay him and there’s nothing he can do.

If you are not legal, whether you have overstayed your visa by a day or a year, expect to reach in to your pocket. Panamanian civil servants are grossly underpaid and Panama is a notoriously corrupt country. Many, many “tourists” in Panama have slightly extended their stay unofficially. If you are caught in that situation, you will likely be threatened with deportation. This scenario plays out almost daily in Panama. I know of many people this has happened to and not one of them has been deported. In this situation, $5 usually fixes the problem quickly.

This “stop-every-tourist-on-the-street” policy has now gotten even worse. There are reports from Panama City and Boquete of groups of immigration officials entering restaurants and hotels to demand passports from foreigners. Some have even been escorted to their hotel to retrieve their passport as their meal gets cold on the restaurant table.

If you live in Panama or spend a great deal of time here, this is probably nothing new for you. However, for a first time visitor to Panama, I’m sure this is a very frightening situation. Having immigration officials treat foreigners in this way could leave the visitors to believe that Panama is extremely unsafe and unwelcoming to tourists. Add to the confusion the fact that every immigration official I have encountered speaks about 3 words of English.

This treatment towards tourists does not seem to be universal. The most likely victimsof this charade are from the US, Canada and Europe. This selective enforcement seems to have a lot less to do with North Americans and Europeans engaging in criminal activity and more to do with the assumption that all gringos are rich and would rather pay up than face “deportation”.

The easiest way to avoid these problems is to stay legal and keep your passport on you at all times. You may still be harassed as you eat dinner or walk down the street, but at least you can be comfortable about calling BS if threatened with deportation.

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Filed under: News on June 24th, 2008