PANAMA CITY (AP) — A program that helped tens of thousands of foreigners get permission to live and work in Panama entered its final days on Friday with the opening of the last of the immigration fairs that have roused nationalist sentiment in the small Central American nation.

Long lines of people filed into a gymnasium in the capital where officials were processing applications under a program known as the “melting pot of the races.” The fair runs through Oct. 12, and the government of new President Juan Carlos Varela says there will be no more.