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Table of Contents

1. Integration and Development

2. Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

3. Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

4. Labor Migration

5. Borders and Enforcement

Integration and Development

🌎 Regional

• “Central America now faces a convergence of challenges: shifting migration patterns alongside shrinking humanitarian support to help governments adapt. Migrants have been challenged by heightened immigration enforcement, high mobility costs, and administrative barriers, while efforts to support local integration and reintegration remain under-resourced and inconsistent,” write Pía Riggirozzi and Natalia Cintra at MPI’s Migration Information Source.

🇨🇷 Costa Rica

• The Costa Rican government has announced the reactivation of the special category for Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Cuban, and Colombian migrants in the country. This regularization pathway is available to migrants of those four nationalities that have a pending or denied asylum application filed between June 1, 2014 and May 7, 2026. The status will last for two years, with opportunity for renewals. (Confidencial, El País, La Prensa)

  • “No one expected that now, just three weeks after Fernández’s inauguration, a measure favorable to the thousands of Nicaraguan dissidents would be issued. Nor has there been a detailed official justification, beyond the need to reduce the backlog of applications that the DGME (General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners) has been dealing with for years,” says El País.

  • For more context on the special category and access to protection (and regularization) in Costa Rica, check out a June 2024 policy brief I co-authored for CEDA.

🇺🇸 United States

• “The authors of a new report from the Brookings Institution find that intensive immigration enforcement in 2025 cost 668,000 jobs, “creating a ‘chilling effect’ that pervaded local economies, hurt businesses affected American-born workers,” reports Michael Sasso of Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Cato Institute researchers have found that immigration crackdowns can hurt American-born workers over multiple generations, reports Jake Angelo of Fortune. And in The Hill, academic leaders David Wippman and Glenn C. Altschuler write about immigrants’ economic contributions,” notes National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily. (see also AMB 5/25/26)

• “In a yet unpublished Federal Register filing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was looking to tighten rules around work authorizations, known as EADs, particularly for those with humanitarian parole and non-DACA deferred status, as well as those facing potential deportation,” reports Newsweek.

🇨🇦 Canada

• An ICC report finds that “roughly 640,000 degree-holding immigrants, almost 26 per cent, are overqualified for their current jobs. That is more than double the 11 per cent rate among their Canadian-born counterparts. Closing the overqualification gap could add roughly 16,000 doctors and 27,000 nurses and related professionals to Canada’s ailing healthcare system, without growing the population,” per the press release.

Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

🇲🇽 Mexico

• “For migrants seeking refugee status in Mexico, there is a two year wait time—placing many individuals and families in limbo. Meanwhile, all migrants face unstable living conditions and security risks throughout the country,” explains a Strauss Center report on migration dynamics and conditions at the US-Mexico border.

🇺🇸 United States

• Eight years after scandals surrounding family separations during the first Trump administration, an AP investigation “has found that the government has re-separated dozens of children from their families, despite a landmark legal settlement meant to reunify them. Some of their parents have been locked in immigration detention facilities for months, others deported back to their home countries after being taken from their families once again. In some cases, immigration officials conducting interior arrests deported people despite discovering they were legally off limits for removal, according to emails obtained by AP.” (see also AMB 5/25/26)

• “Amid growing scrutiny over the rising number of deaths in immigration detention, the Trump administration has eliminated a policy that required U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to investigate and report the deaths of detainees that occurred within 30 days of their release,” reports El País.

  • “ICE Reports 19th Death of 2026: Georgian National Mamuka Artmeladze Dies at Winn Correctional” (Austin Kocher’s Substack)

• The Trump administration is developing a plan that would allow USCIS officials “to reject asylum applications, without adhering to the traditional practice of interviewing the applicants, if they find the cases were filed a year after their arrival to the U.S.,” per CBS.

  • This is reminiscent of a recently adopted policy by the Canadian government. Paying subscribers have full access to the AMB archives and can read more at AMBs 4/13/26, 3/30/26, 6/9/25.

• “A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday blocked a series of Trump administration measures that have prevented federal officials from granting asylum, green cards and other legal immigration benefits to many immigrants in the U.S.,” reports CBS, noting, “One of the policies [Chief Judge] McConnell invalidated had halted all legal immigration applications filed by citizens of 39 countries listed on President Trump’s so-called “travel ban” list.”

  • “There are more than a million backlogged applications for citizenship, green cards, work permits and asylum. When those applications would move forward, however, was uncertain,” says New York Times. The legal battle may eventually reach the Supreme Court.

🇨🇦 Canada

• “Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Deschênes is currently guiding an initiative through the House of Commons’ immigration committee to adopt a responsibility-sharing scheme that would distribute asylum seekers across the federation. The Bloc is pushing this initiative because Quebec has received a disproportionate number of asylum claimants in recent years… It makes sense for the Liberal committee members to support this initiative and show they care about Quebec’s concerns, thereby highlighting the value of a strong federation when the country is facing potentially existential challenges. But the Conservatives have proven less enthusiastic,” explains Michael Barutciski at The Globe and Mail, arguing in favor of the policy.

Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

🌎Regional

• ILO discusses the Conference of Ministers of Labour of Latin America and the Caribbean (see AMB 5/25/26), highlighting, “One of the main outcomes was the inclusion of the Skills Passport as the technical basis for developing the Regional System for the Recognition of Labor Competencies… The conference also resulted in commitments to create an Observatory on Migrant Labor and Labor Rights to monitor common indicators, share best practices, and generate evidence to inform decision-making. Additionally, discussions focused on establishing a Regional Labor Innovation Fund for the Inclusion of Migrants.”

• CARICOM held a regional workshop on labor mobility in the Caribbean with the support of IDB and ILO. (LinkedIn)

🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional

• Costa Rica has now received 7 flights of 149 total third country deportees from the US. (La Nación)

• “More than half of the 15 Latin Americans deported in April to Congo under the Trump administration’s widely criticized crackdown on migrants have returned to their countries of origin,” reports AP. (see AMB 5/4/26)

• “The State Department plans to drastically slash the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to come to the United States,” reports AP.

🇨🇱🇵🇦 Panama and Chile

• “After a ten-year hiatus, Panama and Chile resumed the Political Consultations Mechanism, a strategic dialogue space that seeks to strengthen bilateral cooperation and open a new stage in relations between the two countries,” reports TVN, highlighting migration on the agenda.

🇧🇷 Brazil

• Gustavo Dias and Julio D’Angelo Davies at Latinoamérica21 express concern about discrepancies in official statistics on deportations to Brazil.

Labor Migration

🇺🇸 United States

• New York Times highlights how H2-A visas for temporary work in the agricultural sector are growing following a Trump administration move to lower required minimum wages: “The program’s rapid expansion, however, comes with significant risks. H-2A visas have historically been ridden with fraud, labor trafficking and abuse. According to the Government Accountability Office, of the 2,857 investigations that the Labor Department pursued from 2018 to 2023, 84 percent found violations.”

  • “Oregon and Washington have enacted labor standards on top of the federal rules, which protect workers and add costs. When the federal Labor Department allowed employers to charge workers for housing, the rule was moot in Washington and California, where the deduction would drop workers below the state minimum wage. There are also heat protection rules and overtime requirements, which most states lack… Nearly a third of all H-2A workers in 2025 went to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina — states with minimal labor standards and weaker enforcement. In 2021, Georgia’s onion fields were the site of one of the largest labor trafficking cases in the Labor Department’s history, and North Carolina’s H-2A industry is dominated by a cooperative whose founder went to prison for fraud in 2015.”

  • “The problem is also baked into the structure of the H-2A statute, which binds workers to one employer. Michael Clemens, an economist who studies immigration, believes that allowing visa holders to change jobs is the best way to prevent abuse. South Korea, for example, lets workers quit and be rehired. “Giving workers the opportunity to seek out better employers is so much more effective than any regulatory apparatus,” Mr. Clemens said. “Workers have the strongest incentive to make sure their rights are enforced.””

Borders and Enforcement

🇨🇱 Chile

• “President José Antonio Kast signed two bills this Sunday in Arica aimed at toughening measures against irregular migration and strengthening the State’s tools in matters of border security… The proposals aim, on the one hand, to extend the period of administrative detention of migrants in an irregular situation with expulsion decrees and, on the other hand, to classify as a crime the transfer of irregular foreign persons within the national territory,” reports La Tercera.

  • In regards to immigration detention, “Currently, the maximum retention period is five days. The government’s proposal seeks to extend it to 60 consecutive days, with the possibility of two additional extensions , reaching a maximum of 180 days , subject to judicial review.”

• “Chilean President José Antonio Kast signed a decree on Monday activating the so-called “Return Plan,” a proposal presented during the ultraconservative leader’s first State of the Nation address. The plan aims to encourage the voluntary departure of migrants residing in the country without proper documentation… the goal is to allow undocumented immigrants to leave the country without facing administrative immigration sanctions such as deportation and re-entry bans,” reports El País. (see also La Tercera, InfoMigra; see also last week’s AMB on difficulties irregular migrants have in leaving Chile)

  • Given the Trump administration’s newfound influence in Caracas since January 3rd, the leader of Chile’s Chamber of Deputies is calling for the US to facilitate consular services for Venezuelan migrants to help renew passports and “encourage migrants to leave.” -- “The United States has offered assistance to Chile, and the Chilean government is open to “full collaboration,” laying the groundwork for “somehow having a consular office that can print Venezuelan passports in Chile,” Alessandri said in an interview on Thursday,” reports Bloomberg.

  • Former Boric administration official Luis Eduardo Thayer considers at El País the challenges and prospects of the “Return Plan.”

🇹🇨 Turks and Caicos

• “Authorities have intercepted an overloaded vessel carrying 240 [Haitian] migrants near the Turks and Caicos Islands in one of the largest maritime migrant interceptions reported in the region this year,” reports Curaçao Chronicle.

🇵🇦 Panama

• Panama transferred 116 mainly Venezuelan migrants “to a small indigenous village located in the Caribbean, near the border with Colombia, so that they can continue their journey back to their destinations in South America,” reports EFE. This is a part of the 30-day “special regime” to facilitate return. (see AMB 5/25/26)

🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

• As part of the Dominican Republic’s continued anti-migration crackdown dating to October 2024, “A total of 35,305 undocumented Haitians were deported from the Dominican Republic in May” of this year alone, reports El Nuevo Diario. Nearly 1.5 million Haitians are internally displaced within their home country due to crime and violence. (see last week’s AMB)

🇰🇾 Cayman Islands

• “The Cayman Islands Government has set aside CI$5.6 million in this year’s budget to establish a dedicated migrant detention and processing site for multi-agency operations,” reports Cayman News Service, highlighting concerns about Cuban migration, in particular.

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Table of Contents

1. Integration and Development

2. Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

3. Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

4. Labor Migration

5. Migrants in Transit

6. Borders and Enforcement

7. More on Migration

Integration and Development

🌎 Regional

• A Centro de Políticas Migratorias journal covers a wide range of topics related to immigration in the Americas, including an interview with MPI’s Andrew Selee on regional dynamics, a feature highlighting the case of Ecuador, and trends in Chilean public opinion. In Ecuador, “Nine out of ten returnees from Spain and half of those returning from the United States want to emigrate again, which calls into question the sustainability of any reintegration program.”

• A UNDP report on democracy and development in Latin America and the Caribbean includes a chapter on migration and internal displacement in the region.

🇦🇷 Argentina

• Fewer migrants are applying to transition from temporary to permanent residency following the Milei government’s moves to increase requirements for the latter status, per Página 12.

🇨🇱 Chile

• The Association of Banks (ABIF) and Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) have “sealed an unprecedented agreement that seeks to promote the financial inclusion of regular migrants in Chile through training, education and the generation of applied evidence,” reports La Tercera.

• InfoMigra outlines 23 proposals “in relation to digital rights, access to information and participation and inclusion, in favor of safe, orderly and regular migration, which responds to the needs of immigrant and emigrant communities, as well as to the governance of the Chilean State.”

🇨🇴 Colombia

• A Dejusticia study explores the experiences of migrant women working in Bogotá, “revealing how migration trajectories make the care work historically performed by women more precarious. Furthermore, barriers to obtaining legal immigration status, unequal gender and labor arrangements—both in societies of origin and destination—and a lack of access to services, rights, and care networks trap women in cycles of poverty, with profound impacts on their well-being, autonomy, and health.”

🇺🇸 United States

• “The Department of Homeland Security sought on Friday to clarify its announcement last week that immigrants seeking permanent residency would have to return to their home countries to await their green cards, claiming there was no major change in policy and that only some will have to go back…it would be up to individual immigration officers to decide whether someone should be forced to go abroad to gain a green card. They said that officers have long had such discretion,” reports New York Times.

Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

🇭🇹 Haiti

• DGPC and IOM’s most recent DTM estimates 1,466,862 total IDPs in Haiti, including an increase in internal displacement in Port-au-Prince. (see also last week’s AMB on internal displacement regionally)

🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

• “The Dominican Republic’s anti-immigration crackdown includes stationing officers in hospitals, where Haitian women who give birth, along with their newborns, are caught in the deportation dragnet. The situation has pushed many of them to give birth in squalid conditions without medical supervision, where they face life-threatening risks, reports the New York Times.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)

🇨🇱 Chile

• A Venezuelan migrant attempting to leave Chile through an irregular crossing in the desert died last week, reports La Patria. As noted in AMB 4/27/26, irregular migrants must pay for fines and a permit for legal departure in order to exit the country through formal (safer) channels—approximately 32,897 migrants exited Chile between 2022 and 2025 with official exit authorization, per InfoMigra.

🇧🇷 Brazil

• A technical note by IOM and Fundação Grupo Boticário examines the relationship between climate change and displacement in Brazil, “presents pathways for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), an approach internationally recognized for strengthening urban resilience and reducing socio-environmental vulnerabilities… According to data from the AdaptaBrasil platform published in 2024, 66% of Brazilian municipalities have low or very low adaptive capacity in the face of extreme weather events.”

• MigraMundo highlights the issue of statelessness and efforts to address this in Brazil (and globally).

🇲🇽 Mexico

• “In Tapachula, between 20,000 and 50,000 people remain waiting, according to estimates from local NGOs. In consultations, MSF teams have heard recurring stories: Women, men, and children who have fled violence only to encounter new forms of vulnerability and violence in Mexico. The impacts are not only physical; mental health consequences are also present. Many people have chronic illnesses that have gone months without treatment. People are living in overcrowded conditions, often without reliable access to food or safe drinking water, while many children remain out of school and struggle to survive on the streets,” says Doctors Without Borders.

🇺🇸 United States

• “Taking on what it describes as a “de facto amnesty” program, the Trump administration has sought to all but eliminate the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for noncitizens in the United States whose homelands have experienced natural or man-made disaster. Since returning to office, the administration has sought to end protections for nearly all TPS recipients, including those from troubled Haiti and Venezuela. There were nearly 1.3 million TPS holders in the United States as of March 2025, but that number could drop to zero by the end of November,” explains MPI, reviewing the status of TPS for several countries. The second Trump administration has attempted to end 13 of 17 country designations, only sparing El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan, and Ukraine.

  • In the first such case of his second term, the Trump administration extended TPS for Lebanon for 6 months, reports Newsweek.

• “ICE detainees are dying by suicide at an ‘alarming’ rate, an AP investigation finds” (AP)

• “‘It’s hell’: migrant women suffer constant abuse in ICE centers. Reports of neglect and abuse of pregnant women at detention centers are piling up and reaching Congress” (El País)

• “Lawyers say a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old have been detained at Washington Dulles International Airport for more than a week, Daniel Wu of The Washington Post reports. With a tourist visa, the two came from Ghana seeking medical treatment.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily)

• WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Border Update, noting, “April saw more migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border than any other month of the Trump administration so far. The increase is almost certainly seasonal. Reports from around the border indicate more people are crossing and trying to evade capture. Still, migration remains near 60-year lows amid the ongoing suspension of asylum access and “mass deportation” campaign.”

Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

🌎Regional

• The adoption of full free movement among Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines last year “has not triggered mass migration waves,” reports Observer, highlighting comments from a recent CARICOM border summit. In multiple cases, the new regime has been used to help regularize the status of migrants already residing in a given country.

  • Meanwhile, “Citizens of Barbados and Guyana will soon be able to travel between the two countries using only national identification cards under a landmark bilateral agreement aimed at deepening Caribbean integration,” reports CNW.

  • The Barbados-Guyana agreement highlights the lack of progress on free movement and integration from Jamaica, according to Gleaner: “Last October, when the full free movement quartet – using an amendment to the CARICOM treaty that allows a critical mass of members to proceed on an agreed action while others catch up- launched their agreement, Jamaica restated its commitment to the idea of labour moving freely in the community. But it gave no timeframe for following suit.”

🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional

• On third country deportations by the US:

  • Following controversy over the deportation of a Belizean national to St. Kitts and Nevis by the Trump administration (see last week’s AMB), Belizean officials “indicated that the Belizean national had the option of returning to Belize, but said the decision on where he ultimately landed was his personal choice,” per LoveFM.

  • “A new Human Rights Watch report documents how Cubans deported from the US to Mexico are being left in highly precarious conditions. The report estimates that 4,353 Cubans were deported to Mexico between January 2025 and March 2026, many of whom were left without legal status, stable housing, employment, or access to humanitarian support. Human Rights Watch documented cases involving elderly deportees, families with children, and individuals stranded in dangerous conditions with limited resources and no clear pathway forward,” explains CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.

  • The U.S. policy of deporting people to third countries, often conflict zones or authoritarian governed, must stop, write James A Goldston and Natasha Arnpriester in the Guardian. “No country can guarantee safety if it lacks functioning asylum laws, honest courts, impartial officials and the will to protect people from detention, coercion, disappearance or onward removal. States that facilitate these transfers are violating their own laws and international law.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)

Labor Migration

🇺🇸 United States

• “States know their labor markets, and they should be able to harness the benefits of immigration to support their economic growth. They oversee occupational licensing, labor and employment protections, and unemployment benefits. Congress should recognize this need by creating a State-Designated Critical Skills Visa, giving states the ability to identify and address critical workforce needs,” proposes Betsy Fisher at Securing America’s Promise.

  • “Under this program, states that opt in would provide temporary status for workers offered a job in an occupation they have designated as critical. For example, Washington might focus on agricultural workers for berry farms, while Tennessee might prioritize nursing home caregivers. The visa could cover a wide range of jobs, as long as employers provide safe working conditions and fair wages that protect existing workers.”

  • “The State-Designated Critical Skills Visa should include serious worker protections. Unlike the current visa system, where immigrant workers are dependent on one employer, increasing the likelihood of abuse, this visa should allow workers to change employers. Visa applications should also include fees to cover compliance inspections that ensure safe and fair working conditions. Fees should also support training for U.S. workers.”

• Considering demographic realities, “Absent immigration, a smaller workforce will be funding entitlements and benefits for a growing number of retirees, leading to lower growth, higher taxes, rising costs, and fewer public services. Given that outlook, the country urgently needs to determine how to put immigration policy onto firm footing with common-sense visa policies that enable orderly immigration aimed at sustaining economic dynamism,” explains MPI, outlining a reform agenda that includes to “Attract and facilitate immigration for key talent… Identify priority sectors where foreign-born workers can best contribute… Establish flexibility… Allow employers to sponsor reliable workers who are already in the United States… [and] Build employment-based immigration processing machinery that is efficient and workable for employers and immigrants alike.”

• “A Trump administration plan to overhaul wage levels for visa holders is jolting hospitals and long-term care facilities that are heavily reliant on foreign-born workers,” reports Axios, explaining, “The Department of Labor wants to change the formula for calculating what it considers “fair minimum pay” for workers on certain visas, like H-1Bs, and green card sponsorship jobs.” Axios notes, “There’s special concern about rural health providers that rely heavily on foreign-born clinicians to fill gaps in care in underserved areas.” (see also last week’s AMB)

Migrants in Transit

🌎Regional

• “In previous periods of political and economic crisis, most Cuban migrants went to the United States. But a growing share is now heading to Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico. These destination countries bear the downstream costs of U.S. policy toward Cuba, giving them leverage that could shape their responses to Washington’s future actions in the hemisphere,” write Gil Guerra and Diana Roy at Foreign Policy.

Borders and Enforcement

🇬🇹 Guatemala

• An investigation by Guatemalan authorities reveals a “gota a gota” loan shark scam in Colombia linked to irregular migration to Guatemala in collaboration with officials from the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM). (Prensa Libre)

🇦🇼 Aruba

• The Netherlands Caribbean Coast Guard arrested two Venezuelan sailors for migrant smuggling off the coast of Aruba. “Several passengers admitted to paying at least $300 for the transfer from Venezuelan territory. Some even revealed that they had agreed to pay the ship’s captain another $200 once the journey was over,” reports Crónicas del Caribe.

🇺🇸 United States

• Former DHS official Theresa Cardinal Brown considers at her Substack “A Principled and Practical Approach to Interior Immigration Enforcement”—imagining what interior immigration enforcement looks like in a context in which there are no undocumented immigrants (either because of regularization or deportation) and “the question then becomes: What should happen to the next person in the U.S. who violates immigration law in some way?” Policy recommendations include to “Clarify and Codify Enforcement Priorities… Promote Fairness to Encourage Compliance… Ensure Enforcement Respects the Constitution… [and] Strengthen Congressional Oversight.”

🇨🇦 Canada

• “Canada to drop visa requirement for citizens of Indonesia and Malaysia” (CIC News)

• Due to ebola risks, Canada is temporarily suspending immigration documents for residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, per CIC News.

More on Migration

🇲🇽 Mexico

• “Remittances to Mexico fell roughly 4.6 percent in 2025 due to a combination of factors related to demographic changes and migration enforcement. Other contributors to the change include small increases in the principal amount remitted, a reduction in transfers from non-Mexicans, and the use of other money transfer methods,” explains Inter-American Dialogue.

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Table of Contents

1. Integration and Development

2. Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

3. Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

4. Labor Migration

5. Migrants in Transit

6. Borders and Enforcement

Integration and Development

🌎 Regional

• A CGD policy paper examines the situation of Venezuelan migrants in Latin America: “Using original survey data from nearly 3,000 Venezuelan migrants across nine Latin American countries, this paper examines how legal immigration status shapes labor market integration and settlement intentions. Legal status is strongly associated with better labor market outcomes… Legal status alone, however, is not associated with wanting to stay in the host country: legal and undocumented migrants report virtually identical settlement intentions.”

• An MPI and Mayors Migration Council report “highlights a range of local experiences in supporting urban economic inclusion, drawing in part on consultations with city officials, civil-society actors, and migrants and refugees from cities in around the world,” including in Latin America.

🇨🇴 Colombia

• Despite previous policy limiting irregular migrants in Colombia to just emergency health care access, a Constitutional Court ruling “ordered the activation of clear pathways, defined responsibilities, and effective coordination mechanisms to provide care for migrants with serious illnesses. The ruling states that the lack of immigration regularization or affiliation with the healthcare system cannot prevent access to health services when a serious or catastrophic medical condition exists,” as explained by Consultor Salud.

🇨🇱 Chile

• The Kast government has proposed a bill amendment “to require public and private offices and health centers, boarding houses, and educational institutions to report the presence of undocumented migrants to the authorities,” per El País.

  • Chile’s health minister has reportedly “distanced herself” from the proposal, which has caused controversy within the administration. (EFE, La Tercera)

• “Less Than 1% of Regularization Requests to the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior Have Been Approved Since 2022” (InfoMigra)

🇨🇼 Curaçao

• “The Curaçao government has officially launched the website and registration portal for the legalization program Rib’e Lugá, opening a new pathway for undocumented migrants on the island to apply for temporary legal residency,” reports Curaçao Chronicle. (see AMB 5/4/26)

  • As birth rates decline, most population growth on the island is due to migration. (Curaçao Chronicle)

🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago

• “Director of La Casita Hispanic Cultural Centre Andreina Brown is appealing to Homeland Security minister Roger Alexander to provide an update on the fate of ‘hundreds of migrants who have not yet registered’ as part of the Migrant Registration Framework,” reports Express, noting, “a total of 16,408 applicants have been interviewed” for the temporary regularization process. (see AMB 3/9/26)

🇺🇾 Uruguay

• A pair of presentations (1, 2) and a paper from the Uruguayan government examine the labor market integration of the migrant population in Uruguay. (see related press release)

• Uruguay’s National Directorate of Migration has declared the Migra Móvil initiative—a mobile office that “brings the procedures to the place where migrants and Uruguayans need them”—a success, having assisted primarily with permit renewals. (MediosPublicos)

🇯🇲 Jamaica

• “Clarendon has emerged as a national leader in local development planning, becoming the first parish in Jamaica to formally integrate migration into its long-term growth framework,” reports Gleaner.

🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

• The Dominican Republic is looking to develop policies to reintegrate returnees, based in part on the Guatemalan model. (Acento)

  • Paying subscribers to the AMB have access to the full archive and can read up on Guatemala’s approach in AMBs 3/30/26, 3/23/26, and 1/26/26.

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🇬🇹 Guatemala

• A paper at World Development examines Guatemalan migration, finding, “Return migration entails important trade-offs, raising GDP but potentially reducing household consumption, especially among remittance-dependent households. Facilitating reintegration and implementing targeted policies can yield win–win outcomes.”

🇭🇳 Honduras

• Honduras “announced the strengthening of a comprehensive return and reintegration mechanism for migrant children in Honduras… The objective is to strengthen comprehensive care for migrant children through territorial monitoring mechanisms, responses in health, education, violence prevention and social protection with a human rights approach,” per a press release.

• “Congress approves law allowing returning migrants to bring their assets tax-free” (El Heraldo)

• IOM highlights two recent efforts to promote reintegration. (1, 2)

🇧🇿 Belize

• “Piped Water Transforms Daily Life for Migrants in Belize: The Water Supply and Modernization Program, a collaboration between the Belizean government, Belize Water Services, and the IDB, is transforming the lives of migrant and local families in Belmopan.” (IDB)

🇦🇷 Argentina

• EFE highlights the contributions of Venezuelan migrants to Argentina’s healthcare sector.

🇺🇸 United States

• An NBER working paper by Elizabeth Cox and Chloe N. East investigates the impacts of ICE arrests on labor market outcomes, finding no evidence that immigration enforcement improved outcomes for US-born workers. Importantly, they find, “there is a negative and significant impact on employment of U.S.-born male workers with at most a high-school education, who work in likely affected sectors.”

• “The Trump administration on Friday announced a sweeping policy designed to make it harder for immigrants already in the U.S. to get permanent residency, or a green card… in most cases, those immigrants will be required to return to their home countries in order to apply for an immigrant visa overseas through an American consulate,” reports CBS.

Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

🌎Regional

• IDMC published this year’s Global Report on Internal Displacement. The report estimates 10.5 million persons were affected by internal displacement in the Americas in 2025, notes EFE, adding, “A large proportion of the internally displaced people in the region fled their homes due to conflict, including more than seven million Colombians, as well as 1.4 million in Haiti, 573,000 in Guatemala, 390,000 in Mexico, 316,000 in Ecuador, 101,000 in Honduras, 82,000 in Peru, 61,000 in El Salvador, and 19,000 in Brazil.”

  • Earlier this month, “Hundreds of Indigenous families (were) forced to flee their homes in the mountains of central Mexico by intense attacks from a local criminal group, including drone bombings,” per The Guardian.

🇨🇱 Chile

• The Chilean government has published a new Circular that “updates and corrects the possible exclusion of access to Chilean nationality for sons and daughters of transient foreigners that could have been generated by the previous Circular No. 014,” explains InfoMigra. (see AMB 5/4/26, which explains previous concerns of statelessness risk)

🇧🇷 Brazil

• “A delay of more than four months by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice in publishing rules on granting humanitarian visas has postponed the analysis of new permits,” reports Folha, highlighting concerns for Afghans, in particular.

• UNHCR details efforts by the Brazilian government and UNHCR to make interviews for the condition of refugee status accessible for Indigenous Venezuelan migrants in the Brazilian border state of Roraima.

🇲🇽 Mexico

• “Dozens of foreign nationals were detained during unusual immigration raids in Mexico City, operations that have sparked fear among migrant advocates and raised questions about Mexico’s increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics,” reports Latin Times. Red Jesuita Con Migrantes denounces the operations as “persecution,” arguing that migrant irregularity is a “direct consequence of the collapse of the international protection system in Mexico.”

🇺🇸 United States

• “The Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to deport asylum-seekers to third countries have stalled thousands of immigrants’ cases and scared thousands more into giving up their asylum claims, according to a CBS News analysis of recently released federal data and interviews with attorneys and immigration policy experts.” (CBS; see more in the next section below on regional cooperation)

• “A new analysis suggests that more than 100,000 children have been separated from their parents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And roughly three-quarters of those children… are likely U.S. citizens,” reports New York Times, citing Brookings.

• “The US government has said it will increase the number of white South Africans it admits as refugees this year from about 7,500 to 17,500,” reports The Guardian.

• “ICE has awarded a contract to a private security company that has faced accusations of “torture” and “enforced disappearance” to assist in tracking down undocumented immigrant children who arrived in the US alone,” reports The Guardian.

• “Some immigrants are being detained after calling police to seek help, Shoshana Walter of The Marshall Project reports in partnership with the Miami Herald. The incidents are increasing as more local law enforcement agencies — some with the requirement or encouragement of state law — sign agreements that allow local officers to enforce federal immigration laws… Now some residents avoid reporting crimes for fear of immigration consequences. That’s not in keeping with broader public safety, as our Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force notes,” explains National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily.

• “Since the Trump administration made detention mandatory for immigrants facing deportation proceedings, federal judges have said more than 10,000 times that a detention was illegal, Kyle Cheney of Politico reports. That represents about 90% of lawsuits filed, and it includes a majority of Trump-appointed judges who’ve ruled against the administration, he notes. The outlet also released a database of the rulings.” (The Forum Daily)

• “Internal ICE records reveal widespread use of force in detention centers” (Washington Post)

• “ProPublica identified 79 children across the United States who were harmed by tear gas or pepper spray deployed by ICE or CBP agents during Trump’s immigration crackdown,” notes Austin Kocher at his Substack.

• “Immigration authorities in the United States have increasingly used their powers to curb independent and critical reporting in the current Trump administration, denounced the Committee to Protect Journalists.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)

🇨🇦 Canada

• “Canada: Xenophobic, racist tropes drive online hate against racialized women and LGBTQI+ people” (Amnesty International)

Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

🌎Regional

• Peru (among other countries) signed on to the Bogotá Declaration and the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding on Decent Labor Migration at the Conference of Ministers of Labor of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Colombia last week. Priority areas include strengthening circular migration mechanisms, promoting skills recognition and training, and boosting a regional agenda focused on “social justice and inclusive integration,” per a press release. The conference included officials from 20 countries, notes La FM; nearly 20 countries signed on to the documents, according to Caracol.

• Officials from across the Americas attended the International Migration Review Forum at the UN earlier this month. Several countries participated in bilateral meetings either on the sidelines of the event or elsewhere across the region, including the following:

  • “Colombia and Spain strengthen alliance to promote regular migration with a rights-based approach at the UN” (press release)

  • Chilean and Peruvian officials met to discuss combatting irregular migration, among other topics. (press release)

  • Panamanian and Guatemalan officials met to discuss migration and their pro tempore presidencies of the Quito Process and Regional Conference on Migration, respectively. (DCA)

  • The presidents of Panama and the Dominican Republic met and discussed migration, among other topics. (press release)

• “CARICOM member states are currently developing a regional migration policy aimed at addressing labour mobility, demographic decline and climate-related displacement,” reports Barbados Today, highlighting comments from IOM’s Patrice Quesada: “He also pointed to St Lucia’s upcoming national migration policy launch as a possible model for other Caribbean countries.”

  • “Falling birth rates, brain drain: Why Saint Lucia is rethinking migration” (St. Lucia Times; see also IOM news release)

  • In Belize, meanwhile, the government has been conducting consultation processes “to help shape Belize’s National Migration and Development Policy,” per LoveFM. (see also GBM, LoveFM 1 and 2)

  • Belize is also holding consultations to update the country’s Refugees Act. (BBN, UNHCR)

• “As part of its ongoing work with international partners, Canada is investing in projects that help improve how migration is managed around the world.” This includes several projects focused on Latin America. (press release)

🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional

• The Dominican Republic has agreed to receive “about thirty deportees from third countries each month from the United States, after signing a controversial one-year agreement,” says EFE. Deportees will not include Haitians or unaccompanied minors. The Dominican foreign minister has asserted, “We are not talking about permanent settlement, migrant absorption, or legal proceedings in the country. It is a controlled, temporary transit operation.”

• Paraguay received nine third-country deportees from the US from Bolivia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, reports EFE.

• St. Kitts and Nevis received three third-country deportees—from Belize and Jamaica—from the US. They will be “granted the immigration status and legal accommodation ordinarily applicable to CARICOM nationals,” reports Gleaner.

• “A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the U.S. from Congo, after she was deported to the African nation even though it had refused to accept her because it could not care for her medical needs,” reports AP. The New York Times examines the situation for those deported to the country.

• “China is slowing its efforts to repatriate Chinese nationals who are in the U.S. illegally, a senior Trump administration official ​told Reuters, warning that Washington was prepared to increase travel restrictions on the country if Beijing didn’t reverse course.” (Reuters)

• US and Mexican officials met and discussed migration this past week. (press release)

  • Earlier this month, New York Times reported, “The State Department said it would review the 53 Mexican consulates in the United States… The review comes after claims have been circulating in conservative media in recent months that Mexican consulates interfere in American politics and encourage mass migration to the United States.”

• US and Honduran officials met and discussed migration, among other topics. (La Prensa)

🇨🇷 Costa Rica

• Costa Rica’s migration directorate is in need of institutional reform due to long backlogs for immigration processes and overworked employees, says Eduardo Flores Buitrago at Diario Extra.

🇨🇺 Cuba

• “After nearly two years, Cuba published the final version of its new Migration, Foreigners, and Citizenship Laws on May 5.” -- CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief explains notable changes and what remains the same.

Labor Migration

🇬🇾 Guyana

• Guyanese labor minister Keoma Griffith spoke at a recent forum on labor migration and diaspora in Guyana, reports Guyana Chronicle, noting, “According to the minister, Guyana has increasingly become a destination for migrant labour, particularly workers from China, India, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and neighbouring Caribbean countries, as major development projects continue to expand across multiple sectors… Griffith said Budget 2026 outlines plans for a migration policy aimed at recruiting foreign workers to meet labour shortages without compromising the rights and interests of Guyanese workers. According to the minister, the proposed framework will also strengthen diaspora engagement and improve systems for recognising and mapping the skills of overseas-based Guyanese professionals.”

🇲🇽 Mexico

• “Mexico has published reforms to the general guidelines for the issuance of visas, effective immediately. The changes impact residence visa processes, particularly the Temporary Residence Visa for Remunerated Activities category, which is the country’s most commonly used work authorization route. The changes expand documentary and compliance requirements, including enhanced employment offer letter content requirements and increased scrutiny of foreign nationals’ professional qualifications, particularly in technical or highly specialized roles,” says Fragomen.

🇺🇸 United States

• “A March 2025 Nature poll found that three-quarters of U.S.-based scientists are considering leaving. Britain, Singapore, Australia and Canada are actively recruiting them… Immigration in the abstract is toxic, because voters see illegal crossings and visa abuse by people willing to break the rules. But the resulting backlash does not extend to welcoming top talent via specific, well-designed, legal programs,” writes Alexander Kustov at Washington Post, calling for two concrete moves that “don’t even require action by Congress. First, expand and encourage greater use of the O-1A extraordinary-ability visa. Unlike the H-1B, this established program for top individuals in fields including the sciences has no numerical cap and no lottery… Second, fix how the government sets wages for foreign workers. The Labor Department’s March proposal includes an option that would require employers to pay foreign workers what an American with the same job and experience earns, which would close that gap without crushing the research pipeline. That option needs to be the one the agency picks, and the public comment window closes May 26.”

🇰🇾 Cayman Islands

• “Cayman Islands: New Immigration Act Tightens Hiring, Mobility and Compliance Rules” (Fragomen)

🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands

• BVI is planning to “introduce a structured immigration quota-setting system as part of planned amendments to the Immigration and Passport Act,” reports CNW, noting, “quotas will be tied to economic, labour, housing and demographic data.”

Migrants in Transit

🌎Regional

• “Will Intervention Cause a Migration Crisis in Cuba?” asks Gil Guerra at Popular by Design, arguing that Cubans are less likely to emigrate to the US en masse than many are assuming.

🇵🇾 Paraguay

• Paraguay Post highlights an increase in migration to Paraguay: “Of the 40,600 foreigners granted leave to remain last year, 24,526 were from Brazil, many of them students. Argentines, with 4,366 requests granted, were a distant second. The influx is only accelerating: successful applications grew by 85% in January-March compared to the same period in 2025.”

Borders and Enforcement

🇨🇱 Chile

• Chile’s Senate voted to approve a bill criminalizing irregular entry into the country. The Chamber of Deputies had approved the bill two years ago. (La Tercera; see AMB 4/27/26 on critiques of the bill)

• The Kast government conducted just its second deportation flight earlier this month, sending 40 deportees to Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. (La Tercera)

• “Chile’s MAGA-inspired border control” (NPR)

🇵🇦 Panama

• Panama has set up a “special regime” for 30 days for the transit and repatriation of Spanish-speaking migrants in Panama to countries of origin in the Americas, notes EFE. “The National Migration Service announced that Venezuelan citizens interested in returning to their country will be able to receive assistance and transportation financed through the migration agreement between Panama and the United States,” reports La Estrella de Panamá.

🇺🇸 United States

• Many of the migrants “promised” $1,000 for voluntarily departing the US are either never receiving the funds or receiving them after a substantial delay, according to El País.

• “Restoring Credibility and Humanity: A New Framework for Immigration Enforcement” (American Immigration Council policy whitepaper)

• “Citing Ebola Outbreak, U.S. Restricts Entry From Congo, Uganda and South Sudan” (New York Times)

• “Trump promised to hold 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo. A year later, it’s mostly empty.” (CBS)

🇹🇨 Turks and Caicos

• “Irregular migration in the Turks and Caicos Islands remains at significant levels, with Government projecting even higher removals in the new fiscal year,” reports Magnetic Media.