The incoming president of Panama has vowed to make big changes to help alleviate the U.S. border crisis.

President-elect Jose Raul Mulino vowed to shut down a crucial migration gap through Panama that has been used by more than 500,000 migrants over the last year, signaling a shift in the country’s policy as the U.S. continues to battle a crisis at its southern border, according to a report from Voice of America.

“Panama and our Darien [Gap] are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said, according to the report.

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Panama had previously helped bus migrants through the critical gap and allowed them to continue their journey north, a policy that has allowed thousands to reach the U.S. border with Mexico.

The shift comes as the U.S. has put continued pressure on Mexico to help alleviate the crisis, calling on the country to help enforce movement restrictions through its territory to prevent migrants from eventually reaching the U.S. border.

The Darien Gap, although a dangerous route north toward the U.S., has become a popular route among migrants in recent years, with cartels and other organized crime organizations stepping in to make it an affordable option for those seeking to reach the United States.

Haitian migrants rest in the Darien Gap near Acandi, Colombia, as they travel to Panama on their way to the United States on Sept. 26, 2021. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

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Mulino, who won with 34% of the vote last week, said the new policy would make Panama a less attractive option for migrants and criminal organizations.

“Because when we start to deport people here in an immediate deportation plan, the interest for sneaking through Panama will decrease,” Mulino said of the plan, according to Voice of America. “I assure you they are going to say that going through Panama is not attractive because they are deporting you.”

Nevertheless, some experts expressed skepticism that such a plan would meaningfully reduce migration. Analyst Adam Isacson of the nongovernmental organization Washington Office on Latin America said Panama does not have the capacity to “massively deport” thousands of migrants.

Migrants, mostly from Ecuador, Haiti and Nigeria, are shown walking in the Darien Gap in Colombia on Nov. 20, 2022. (Jan Sochor/Getty Images)

“A daily plane, which would be extremely expensive, would only repatriate around 10% of the flow (about 1,000 to 1,200 per day). The United States only manages to do about 130 flights monthly in the entire world,” Isacson said.

It was a choice few relished, in a dismal election season.

The incumbent was deeply unpopular, spending his entire campaign on the defensive as he struggled to sell voters on his accomplishments.

His opponent, a wealthy businessman, was equally disliked. At one point during the contest he was dragged into court to face fraud charges.

The year was 2002, and Democrat Gray Davis was struggling mightily to win a second term as California governor.

“The night before the election, his favorability was only 39%,” his campaign manager, Garry South, recollected. “That’s something you don’t forget.”

Strategists for Joe Biden can no doubt relate. For the past many months, the president has dwelled in similarly abysmal polling territory. The latest aggregation of nationwide surveys pegs his approval rating at 38%.

No two elections are alike. But there can be striking similarities, like the parallels between that surly California contest 22 years ago and Biden’s tough reelection fight.

Davis clawed his way to a second term despite his wretched approval rating, which is not to say that Biden will win in November. (If he does, he won’t face the risk of being ousted less than a year later, the way Davis was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

Even strategists for Davis can’t agree on the lessons gleaned from the Democrats’ uphill reelection effort.

South said that campaign convinced him Biden will ultimately prevail. “I’ve gone through this before,” he said.

Paul Maslin, the pollster for Davis’ 2002 race, is less certain. He makes no predictions beyond his expectation the presidential race will be close. The only similarities Maslin sees between then and now are the candidates’ lousy approval ratings and voters’ sour mood.

But even if past experience is no guarantor of future results, history can inform the way we view existing circumstances — which suggests that, as difficult as things look today for Biden, the president can’t be counted out.

Mainly because of who he’s running against.

“It’s a binary choice,” said South. “Yes, there are other candidates in the race. But in the final analysis, it’s between Biden and Trump.”

David Doak, the chief ad-maker for Davis’ reelection campaign, agreed. He, too, tends towards a glass-half-full assessment of Biden’s chances, suggesting a race between two disliked candidates “is a very different equation than if you’re lined up against someone popular.”

In 2002, Davis faced Republican Bill Simon Jr. The political neophyte was a bumbling candidate who ran a terrible campaign. Compounding his difficulties, Simon was slapped just a few months before election day with a $78-million fraud verdict. (The case involved his investment in a coin-operated telephone company, which, even then — five years before the iPhone was introduced — was a head-scratcher.)

Though the verdict was overturned after just a few weeks, the political damage was done and Davis limped past Simon to a narrow victory.

As it happens, Trump has also been tied up in court. He’s spent the last several weeks gag-ordered and squirming as his salacious behavior is examined in forensic detail at a hush-money, election-fraud trial in New York.

But Maslin, the number-cruncher for Davis’ campaign, warned against getting too carried away with comparisons.

For starters, he pointed out, California was a solidly Democratic state, giving Davis a considerable advantage even as his support flagged amid a recession and rolling blackouts. Biden doesn’t have that partisan edge in the roughly half-dozen toss-up states that will decide the presidential race.

Moreover, Maslin noted, Simon was a little-known commodity, which left the Davis campaign free to define him in harshly negative terms. Trump, by contrast, has been America’s dominant political figure for nearly a decade. His reputation, for good and ill, is firmly fixed; there are plenty of voters who won’t be dissuaded — by rain, sleet, snow, a sexual-assault verdict, multiple criminal indictments — from voting for Trump come November.

Perhaps most significant, Biden is the oldest president in American history and, at 81, very much looks it. Davis’ age — he was 59 when he sought his second term — was never remotely a campaign issue.

“There are many millions of voters who, even if they appreciate Biden’s achievements, still question his ability to serve on the job, much less for four more years,” Maslin said. “I’m not saying that’s accurate, but that’s what they’re thinking.”

Davis, for his part, expects Biden to be reelected, given his record and the contrast he offers to the wayward, unprincipled ex-president. Biden, he noted, has been repeatedly underestimated.

“I experienced that when I ran for governor,” said Davis, who was considered an exceeding long-shot before he romped to victory in the 1998 Democratic primary. “Everyone told me I had no chance to make it, so I know the fire that burns inside you when people say that.”

He’s loath to offer the president advice — “he’s got access to the best minds in the world” — but Davis had this to say to hand-wringing Democrats: “We have a winner. Stick with him. Get excited about him.”

“Because,” the former governor added, “another four years of Trump and you’re not going to recognize this country.”

FIRST ON FOX: A Washington, D.C., judge who released on bail a teenager accused of firing over two dozen rounds at a car full of people along a busy street has a social media presence filled with progressive activism and a financial link to progressive mega donor George Soros. 

Lloyd U. Nolan, Jr., a magistrate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, is in the spotlight this week after he ordered that 18-year-old Amonte Moody be released from custody before his trial despite accusations he sprayed a D.C. neighborhood with shots from an AR-15 while targeting a car carrying four people.

Nolan’s online presence includes examples of progressive activism, including a post boasting about being “woke,” a post promoting Black Lives Matter and a post showing he donated to a fundraiser supporting a professor with ties to George Soros.

A Facebook post shows Nolan donated to Gideon’s Promise, a group founded in 2017 through a fellowship from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation on behalf of a professor named Jonathan Rapping.

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Rapping, a professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, developed the venture, which is “devoted to training and supporting public defenders across the Southeastern United States.”

“We envision a nation where every person has access to zealous, outstanding legal representation necessary to ensure ‘equal justice for all’ in the criminal justice arena,” the Gideon’s Promise website states. 

“Our programs and partnerships are uniquely tailored to support and strengthen the efficacy of public defenders as a critical part of systemic criminal justice reform. Public defenders are frontline advocates for the accused in this country and we are committed to nurturing and developing their skills at every career level to produce fairer outcomes for America’s most vulnerable citizens.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to Nolan for comment on the social media posts but did not receive a response. Shortly after the request for comment was sent, Nolan’s Facebook page was set to private.

Nolan concluded that Moody, who was charged with endangerment with a firearm, possession of a weapon and assault, was not a threat to the community and approved a request to release him on house arrest with a GPS monitor on May 3, WJLA-TV reported.

Screenshots from Judge Lloyd U. Nolan’s Facebook page (Fox News )

The decision to release Moody on house arrest prompted outrage from many on social media. And prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., requested an emergency hearing scheduled for May 22 to discuss the matter and potentially reverse it.

“The government presented evidence establishing probable cause that the defendant fired an AR-15 weapon approximately 26 times at a car driving away on a public street in the 1700 block of Independence Ave SE then dissembled the firearm and hid it away in a ceiling,” the prosecutors wrote. 

“Despite the egregiousness of this conduct, the strength of the case, including video evidence depicting it and two identifications of the defendant as the shooter, and the statutory presumption in favor of detention pending trial, the Magistrate Judge released the defendant.”

Police officers in Washington, D.C.  (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

A spokesperson for the D.C. court system told Fox News Digital all defendants “have a presumption of innocence.”

“In this matter — after hearing arguments from both sides and the arguments for detention — the judge determined that 24-hour home confinement on electronic monitoring with the education and social services already in place for the defendant that release, on these strict conditions did ‘ensure the safety of the defendant and the public,’” the spokesperson added. 

The spokesperson also told Fox News Digital the defense “relied heavily” on the fact that Moody had no prior encounters with law enforcement, and he was provided educational support and family and community resources.  

“Judge Nolan conducted a very thorough hearing … and spoke directly with defendant about the consequences of violating any portion of the release conditions,” the spokesperson said.