Nearly 300 deportees from US held in Panama hotel as officials try to return them to their countries

Panama is detaining in a hotel nearly 300 people from various countries deported by the United States, not allowing them to leave while waiting for international authorities to organize a return to their countries. Authorities say more than 40% of the migrants won’t voluntarily return to their homeland. Migrants in the hotel rooms held messages to the windows reading “Help” and “We are not save (sic) in our country” on Tuesday. The migrants hail from 10 mostly Asian countries, including Iran, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and others. The U.S. has difficulty deporting directly to some of those countries so Panama is being used as a stopover.