Americas Migration Brief - May 26, 2025
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇦🇷 Argentina
The Milei administration is turning migrants into a scapegoat for electoral purposes, says CAREF. (see last week’s AMB on new policies)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“Amid the mass deportations carried out by the government, the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD) believes the most appropriate process is the regularization of undocumented immigrants linked to the labor sectors,” reports Listin Diario.
🇨🇴 Colombia
The Petro administration has overseen a shift towards a more restrictive approach on migration, says Nastassja Rojas Silva at La Silla Vacía, noting concerns about limited access to regularization, among other challenges. The article highlights issues surrounding access to the special visitor V visa introduced last year, including rejected applications due to “arbitrary interpretations.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
UNHCR highlights the story of Giovanni, a Haitian refugee building a new life for himself in Mexico City by learning Spanish, gaining permanent residency, and hoping for an opportunity to return to his original profession in the healthcare sector.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
A Mixed Migration Centre report explores “the risks that migrant children face en route and at destination, the protection mechanisms implemented by caregivers, the impacts of migration on children’s lives and well-being, and migrant children’s humanitarian needs.”
“Situation of rights of people with need for international protection in seeking asylum or refuge in Latin America: a regional analysis of border areas” (report)
🇯🇲 Jamaica
“A group of 42 Haitian nationals, including men, women, children, and an expectant mother in the later stages of pregnancy, were repatriated from (Jamaica) on Monday night, just a day after they arrived by boat on a remote beach… Another group of Haitian migrants, previously housed in a facility in St. Mary for an extended period, is also expected to be repatriated soon,” reports CNW, noting, “Their removal comes amid growing concern from rights groups over Jamaica’s treatment of asylum seekers. On Monday, migrant rights organization Freedom Imaginaries issued a press release urging the Jamaican government to halt the expulsion and ensure the Haitians receive access to a fair and effective asylum process.” (see also Observer)
“No asylum hearing. No due process. No humanity,” writes Dennis Minott at The Gleaner in a critique of the government’s moves.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“The other side of Punta Cana: Haitian women raped to avoid deportation and children forced to leave school”—El País reports, “the escalation of immigration measures against Haitians in the Dominican Republic is exacerbating the human rights crisis. The expulsion of refugees is also weakening vital sectors of the economy, such as tourism and construction.”
“UN says 900 pregnant or breastfeeding Haitian women have been expelled from the DR in a month” (EFE)
🇪🇨 Ecuador
El Universo highlights the oft-overlooked challenge of internal displacement in Ecuador. (see also a recent CEDA report and an AMB special edition from last year)
🇵🇦 Panama
The Atlantic outlines the story of asylum seekers from across the world deported to the US and their journey since being released from detention on 90-day stay permits, essentially to grant time to arrange to leave the country. “Charities reached out to officials to talk about getting work permits for the migrants, and both told me that their calls went unanswered. The Apostolic Nunciature to Panama, the Pope’s diplomatic mission in the country, also tried establishing contact with the authorities to no avail. Ayala told me he thought the Panamanian government might be putting off any decisions until it knows whether the Trump administration plans to send more migrants.”
A lawsuit “charges that Panama has not respected the rights of the migrants to seek asylum. Among other claims, it alleges that the Panamanian police obstructed some migrants from applying, and that those who did apply—the six women from Cameroon and Ghana—had no way to seek legal counsel, received immediate denials, and were told by Panamanian authorities not to appeal…. At least three more have been denied, and no one has received a positive answer yet… Whether or not they can, however, very few of the migrants seem to want to apply for asylum in Panama.”
“Before I left Panama, I attended one of President Mulino’s Thursday press conferences in Palacio de las Garzas, the presidential office and residence. I asked him whether the migrants would be able to stay in Panama once their 90-day humanitarian permits expired in June.“I haven’t considered this,” Mulino answered. “The idea is that they leave before.””
🇺🇸 United States
The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to revoke TPS for about 350,000 Venezuelans in the country, opening them up to deportation. (Washington Post, AP)
According to law experts, this may be “the biggest instantaneous “de-documentation” of immigrants in U.S. history,” notes Immigration Impact.
El País reveals that a third migrant was deported “by error” by the Trump administration—this despite a judge’s order protecting him from deportation and previous expressions of fear of persecution at home.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return him to the US, reports Washington Post.
“The Trump administration has devised plans to spend up to $250 million earmarked for foreign assistance to fund instead the removal and return of people from active conflict zones, including 700,000 Ukrainian and Haitian migrants who fled to the United States amid extreme, ongoing violence back home,” reports Washington Post.
“In April, the Trump administration cut funding for a program that provided legal aid to immigrants with serious mental health conditions who were detained and facing deportation. The move has left attorneys scrambling to keep serving clients for whom they say legal representation can be a matter of life or death,” says The Marshall Project.
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “On May 22nd, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a budget bill with a mammoth amount of new spending to harden the U.S.-Mexico border and increase internal immigration enforcement. Items include $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $45 billion for migrant detention, and $15 billion for deportations, among many other outlays. The bill now moves to the Republican-majority Senate, and it could pass by July.” (see also here)
“The White House has quietly begun to pressure Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate Parliamentarian,” in an effort to help push forward the budget reconciliation, reports Migrant Insider.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
“The idea of advancing the free movement of people within CARICOM, through discussions and the signing of agreements, has been underway for over a decade. So, what’s really holding up the process? At various points, leaders have suggested that a CARICOM national should be able to travel within the region using just an ID card or a single CARICOM passport. Yet, none seem to have the political will to turn this elusive dream into reality,” says the St. Lucia Times editorial staff.
The editorial also notes the issue of cost and logistics in regional travel: “Flying from Saint Lucia to New York is sometimes cheaper than flying to Barbados. While some governments blame fuel prices, a closer look reveals the truth: exorbitant taxes, which vary from one country to another, are largely responsible. Put simply, CARICOM can’t seem to agree on a standardised regional travel tax.”
CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) hosted a regional conference focused on border security, including “Building stronger partnerships to fight migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and organized transnational crime” and “Promoting the implementation of the Regional Migration Policy (RAMP) and developing strategies to enhance CARICOM integration, ensuring a balance between mobility and security.” (Dominica News Online)
An IOM brief covers challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations from a regional workshop on migration and climate-related issues in the Caribbean, including that “the OECS Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment and Climate Change provides a valuable foundation for advancing regional policy coherence and collective action.” (OECS declaration here)
The Andean Community met to discuss regional cooperation on organized crime issues, including efforts to tackle human trafficking. (press release)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
The Trump administration attempted to send 8 migrants from various countries on a deportation flight to South Sudan last week. “The administration has not publicly disclosed the whereabouts of the flight, which a federal judge on Wednesday said ‘unquestionably’ violated a court ruling blocking deportations to third countries without allowing detainees to contest their removal,” reports CBS. South Sudan is “a violence-plagued country in Africa that the State Department advises Americans not to travel to,” notes New York Times.
“Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that the United States government failed to inform Mexico about the deportation of one of its citizens to South Sudan,” reports EFE.
“As many as three U.S. deportation flights per week now arrive Venezuela—in some cases, coming directly from the United States rather than via an intermediary nation such as Honduras. The direct deportation flights are a sign that there is fluid behind-the-scenes communication between Caracas and Washington—and that both countries see value in ongoing negotiations,” write Geoff Ramsey and David Goldwyn in Foreign Policy.
The US budget reconciliation bill that passed the House of Representatives would include a 5% tax on remittances by non-US citizens—remittances are a crucial part of many Latin American economies and are comparable in scale to foreign direct investment in the region, reports DW. This provision has garnered criticism and concern from the region, and a multi-party legislative delegation from Mexico is travelling to DC to push back against the move, notes The Latin Times.
“Family remittances have a positive impact on household income, increasing savings capacity and, in turn, reducing the intention to migrate. A potential decline in remittances due to taxation will increase the intention to migrate again, at a point when it was already in significant decline. A shift toward an unauthorized mechanism and smaller amounts remitted would significantly reduce the volumes. Although it is difficult to ascertain what migrants—particularly those without legal authorization and more vulnerable to U.S. pressure—would choose to do, data on 25 countries over informal fund transfers and transaction costs suggests that the informal economy could grow to 30 percent,” according to the Inter-American Dialogue.
“Lower levels of migration across Latin America have slowed the pace of remittance transfers in the region, Western Union said in a presentation released April 23,” per a Dialogue Q&A.
“The U.S. Trump administration’s plan to expel gang members to El Salvador relies on Osiris Luna, the Salvadoran prison director sanctioned by the U.S. for gang negotiations, reports the Wall Street Journal.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)
“Costa Rica should definitively state that it will accept no further third-country nationals from the United States,” says Human Rights Watch in a report on “The US Expulsion of Third-Country Nationals to Costa Rica” (see also last week’s AMB)
🇬🇹🇨🇷 Costa Rica and Guatemala
“The governments of Costa Rica and Guatemala signed a Protocol on Migration Flows for Labor Purposes, a bilateral instrument that establishes the technical and operational guidelines for regulating labor migration between the two nations in an orderly, safe, and fair manner… Its main objective is to ensure that labor migration processes are carried out with full respect for the rights of migrant workers, while providing legal security to employers and promoting orderly and regulated migration.” (press release)
🇪🇨🇨🇴 Colombia and Ecuador
“In order to coordinate capacity-building actions between Ecuador's Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion (MIES) and the Ministry of Family Welfare, the two entities formed technical working groups to exchange experiences in providing comprehensive care to children, adolescents, and families in contexts of human mobility and international migration, particularly in prevention and protection services. Their mission is also to consolidate a binational agreement.” (press release)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“President Luis Abinader has issued Decree 268-25, establishing a temporary honorary advisory commission to review and recommend improvements to the Dominican Republic’s immigration legal framework,” reports Dominican Today.
🇻🇪 Venezuela
The Maduro government has announced an “Office of the Comprehensive Migrant Assistance Division” in Caracas that they say will help returnees. (El Universal)
Labor Migration
🇨🇦 Canada
“In a recent mandate letter to his cabinet, Prime Minister Mark Carney reiterated his broad goals for Canada’s immigration system… Returning overall immigration to sustainable levels; and Attracting the best talent from around the world to help build Canada’s economy.” (CIC News)
🇺🇸 United States
“Even though President Donald Trump has said international students should receive green cards after graduating from U.S. universities, a nominee to head the nation’s immigration service says he wants to stop foreign students from working after graduation” by ending the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, reports Forbes.
In other education-related news, the Trump administration moved to block Harvard from enrolling international students for this fall, but a federal judge has temporarily blocked the policy after a lawsuit. (NPR)
An American Academy of Arts and Sciences report outlines a proposal for “Community Partnership Visas” that “would allow communities that meet certain criteria to apply to serve as hosts for new arrivals. Such a program would leverage America’s longtime status as an immigration hub to revitalize local economies across the country.”
“America’s Talent Pipeline Dries Up Amid H-1B Overhaul: H-1B registrations fall 25%, leaving migrants uncertain and global competitors circling” (Migrant Insider)
“A bipartisan trio of U.S. Senators—Tim Kaine, D-Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jim Risch, R-Idaho —met last week to strategize on advancing the Religious Workforce Protection Act (S.1298) through a unanimous consent vote… The bill aims to allow foreign-born religious workers on expiring R-1 visas to remain in the U.S. while awaiting decisions on their EB-4 green card applications,” reports Migrant Insider.
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
El País highlights southbound return migration in the Americas, noting that HIAS staff in Colombia have identified three principal profiles among the mainly Venezuelan migrants, none of which constitute a permanent return to Venezuela: “those who want to return temporarily to Venezuela, those seeking to stay in Colombia, and those who continue on to other South American countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Chile, or Brazil.”
According to the Encovi 2024 survey in Venezuela, Venezuelan emigrants are more likely to be men (55%), young (but older than in the past), and with lower education than those in the past. (La Silla Vacía)
“On May 14, a Carnival Cruise Line ship rescued five Cubans aboard a small boat on the Caribbean Sea. Others aboard the small boat refused rescue by the cruise ship, but were given food and water before continuing their journey… In recent years, Carnival ships have rescued a number of people at sea,” reports CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.
🇵🇪 Peru
Diario Correo highlights Peruvian emigration, noting, “According to the GSG Education report, Peru leads the percentage growth of South American students choosing to study abroad, with annual increases of between 18% and 20%… ManpowerGroup's 2025 Talent Shortage Survey reveals that 70% of Peruvian employers are struggling to find suitable profiles, an increase of five percentage points compared to the previous year.”
Borders and Enforcement
🇨🇼 Curaçao
After the apprehension of 10 Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter Curaçao irregularly by sea, Crónicas del Caribe reports, “The Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard continues to report the capture of Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter the islands illegally.”
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
In Trinidad and Tobago, “a High Court judge has found the chief immigration officer (CIO) in contempt of court for defying an injunction that barred the deportation of two Venezuelan women in 2019,” reports Newsday.
🇺🇸 United States
“The United States on Monday sent 68 immigrants from Honduras and Colombia back to their countries, the first government-funded flight of what the Trump administration is calling voluntary deportations,” reports AP, noting that the returnees received $1,000 debit cards—“Experts believe the self-deportation offer will only appeal to a small portion of migrants already considering return, but unlikely to spur high demand.”
“Some suspects in violent assaults and sex crimes are escaping American justice because they're being deported before they can stand trial, according to a number of prosecutors and legal experts across the country,” reports USA Today, noting, “These rapid deportations mean some innocent people are being denied the chance to clear their name in a U.S. courtroom. For crime victims, it means they never see the satisfaction of their assailant behind bars.”
“How Trump Has Targeted New Groups for Deportation” (New York Times)
“Trump migrant detentions at Guantanamo Bay cost $100,000 per person daily, senator says” (Reuters)
More on Migration
🇳🇮 Nicaragua
“Nicaragua legislature votes to end dual citizenship” (Reuters)