Americas Migration Brief - December 1, 2025
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
An IDB technical note investigates how schools can facilitate social cohesion for migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean, evaluating experimental and quasi-experimental studies and finding that “the most promising initiatives are those that begin at an early age, are regularly integrated into the curriculum, and involve the active participation of teaching staff.”
🇨🇱 Chile
Chile’s Children’s Ombudsman expressed concern about a proposed bill to limit access to public health care and education benefits for migrant children. (press release)
🇲🇽 Mexico
A Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies paper examines discrimination against both migrants and returnees in Mexico: “Foreign-born immigrants report higher appearance-based discrimination and unfair denial of employment than returnees, even after controlling for skin tone. Second-generation returnees show higher odds of unjustified detention and obstacles to school (re)enrolment, patterns not fully explained by ethno-racial bias or legal exclusion. The results clarify how migration and discrimination intersect in Mexico and frame integration and reintegration as distinct processes shaped by legal barriers, ethno-racial hierarchies and migrant stigma.”
“Despite legal frameworks guaranteeing their right to education, forcibly displaced children in Mexico continue to face institutional, linguistic and socioeconomic barriers to school enrolment and learning continuity,” explains a UNHCR and Save the Children report.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
A study analyzing discriminatory, hostile, and violent narratives on social media platforms in the Dominican Republic found that Haitian and Haitian-descendent individuals were by far the primary victims of hateful messaging, reports Diario Libre.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
Despite the scale of Venezuelan exodus and crisis over the last decade, “most governments have refrained from activating either the asylum frameworks under international refugee law or their own regionally expanded definitions better suited to the Venezuelan context. Instead, they have turned to temporary, ad hoc protection pathways as palliative measures to grant short-term residence. While these arrangements may seem pragmatic in the immediate term, they lack the legal certainty and stability offered by the refugee status. These responses illustrate an emerging regional shift. At a top-down level, this trend reflects a retreat from the institutional authority of refugee law and a gradual erosion of the asylum institution itself; at a bottom-up level, it constrains refugees’ capacity to achieve long-term stability and social integration within host societies,” writes Alessandra Enrico-Headrington for the Oxford Human Rights Hub.
Enrico-Headrington conducted focus groups with Venezuelans living in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador in an effort to understand their perspectives on temporary protection programs and asylum: “Surprisingly, the focus groups revealed that across the three countries many Venezuelans tend to prefer these temporary legal regimes, despite the limited set of rights they offer. This preference can be directly linked to several shortcomings in the asylum system, such as long processing times and a lack of accessible information.” (Oxford RSC)
🇨🇴 Colombia
Laboratorio Migrante highlights how Venezuelan migrant children in Colombia “have been victims of recruitment, sexual violence, explosive devices, death threats, or have been orphaned by armed groups.”
🇧🇷 Brazil
A Palestinian couple that were stranded in Guarulhos airport have been allowed to enter into Brazil and apply for refugee status, reports Metrópoles.
🇺🇸 United States
“The Trump administration is planning a full review of about 233,000 refugees who were fully vetted and entered the United States during the Biden administration, report Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters… The agency will rescind refugee status for people already here ‘if they are found to not meet refugee criteria,’ per the memo. The new directive also would suspend the processing of refugees’ permanent residence applications,” notes National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily, explaining, “Refugees who entered through our refugee resettlement process are the most rigorously vetted of all immigrants.”
The Trump administration took aim in recent days at humanitarian policies for multiple nationalities:
“The Trump administration announced it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 4,000 immigrants from Myanmar, a country still in the midst of a civil war, reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News. The administration also plans to end TPS for Somalis, a move bringing anxiety to the community in Minnesota, reports James Walsh of the Minnesota Star Tribune.” (via The Forum Daily)
The Trump administration is also ending TPS for Haitians: “According to a new Department of Homeland Security notice issued (last week), TPS for approximately 340,000 Haitian migrants will be terminated in February. In the notice, the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, said that Haiti no longer faces ‘extraordinary and temporary conditions’ that would prevent nationals from returning. That statement comes despite worsening instability from gang violence in Haiti and political turmoil that has forced more than a record 1.4 million people from their homes this year,” explains Jordana Timerman at Latin America Daily Briefing.
“A recent immigration policy shift has left nearly 200,000 Ukrainians in legal limbo due to delays in renewing their humanitarian parole, a Reuters team reports. Many Ukrainians have lost their work authorization and now face economic and emotional hardships.” (via The Forum Daily)
“President Donald Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status,” reports AP. This came as the administration on Friday “paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan as President Trump launched a major review of the country’s immigration system after the shooting of two National Guard members,” per The New York Times; “Afghan refugee applications had been frozen months earlier, in a blanket refugee ban. Mr. Trump then issued a travel ban in June on 19 countries that included Afghanistan, but there has been an exception for applicants for Special Immigrant Visas.”
“Afghans Who Assisted U.S. During the War Underwent Rigorous Vetting: Former officials said the C.I.A. diligently assessed those who partnered with its forces, like the man accused of shooting two National Guard members in Washington.” (New York Times)
“This year ICE has sent more immigrant children into the federal shelter system than in the previous four years combined. New data suggests families are being separated,” reports ProPublica, adding, “Under Trump, kids’ average stay in federal custody is nearly six months — up from a month under Biden. Lengthy stays are leading some children to lose hope.”
🇨🇦 Canada
The New York Times highlights concerns surrounding the implementation of Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the US and that carveouts to allow asylum seekers to enter Canada are not being implemented in practice: “Interviews with nongovernmental organizations and lawyers suggest that border services officers are applying more stringent scrutiny to people arriving to join close relatives in Canada. The officers are particularly questioning the authenticity of documents. Some of these efforts seem to go too far, with officers dismissing authentic documents… C.B.S.A. officers do not appear to be acknowledging that the situation faced by asylum seekers in the United States if Canada returns them has changed since Mr. Trump’s return to power, even as his administration advertises its harshness.”
The Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot to recruit skilled refugees to Canada is facing years-long application backlogs, reports CBC, explaining, “As a result, some Canadian businesses are unable to fill positions, while skilled refugees are also in limbo and risk exploitation, arrest or detention.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
In their 18th annual meeting, “Mexico and the Central American countries, which make up the Comprehensive Regional Framework for Protection and Solutions (MIRPS), announced this Wednesday that they agreed to redouble their efforts to protect migrants and promote lasting solutions to forced displacement in their regions.” (EFE)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered American diplomats in Europe and in Canada, Australia and New Zealand to press their host governments to restrict most immigration and to file reports if the governments appear to be overly supportive of immigrants,” reports The New York Times.
“Venezuela said the U.S. has unilaterally suspended its migrant repatriation flights and seeks to ‘undermine the sovereignty of its airspace,’ after President Donald Trump posted on social media that the country’s airspace should be considered as ‘closed in its entirety,’” reports CBS.
At the same time: As “a growing number of Venezuelan children whose parents were deported back to their home country have been left behind in the United States, advocates question whether these parents were really presented with the choice to take their children with them. While other Latin American countries appear to be grappling with the same issue, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has been particularly vocal and has made the issue a rallying cry against Trump, reports the New York Times.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)
“The State Department said on Friday that it had ramped up its capacity at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to process more business visas for South Koreans, as the Trump administration tries to repair the damage from an immigration raid on a large South Korean-run factory in Georgia,” reports New York Times.
🇭🇳🇲🇽 Mexico and Honduras
The presidents of Mexico and Honduras met to discuss migration, among other topics, and agreed that “cooperation is key to addressing the structural causes of migration and to promoting well-being in the places of origin,” per EFE.
🇨🇴 Colombia
Colombia’s new Vice Ministry of Migration, Consular Affairs and International Protection will include two new departments to coordinate migration policy and consular services, explains Colexret. (see also AMB 10/27/25)
With under a year remaining, the Petro administration’s Foreign Ministry and new migration viceministry have a host of policies reportedly on the agenda, says Gracy Pelacani at La Silla Vacía. Projects include to “modify the regulations regarding apostilles and document legalizations… to repeal the regulation that currently governs the procedure for determining statelessness… (to) regulate the procedure for determining refugee status… to repeal the resolution containing Colombia’s visa policy and, supposedly, replace it with another… to repeal the resolution that currently—and since 2021—allows Venezuelan nationals to use their expired passports for up to 10 years to enter, transit through, remain in, and leave Colombian territory… (and to) regulate the exercise of the right to family unity for foreign nationals in Colombia.”
Migrants in Transit
🇵🇪🇨🇱 Chile and Peru
Threats of mass deportation by leading Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast have led some migrants in Chile to head north, looking to cross into Peru (and potentially further north). In response, the Peruvian government has declared a 60-day state of emergency and militarized its southern border region, sending 50 members of the armed forces with the goal of impeding any irregular entries. A group of dozens of migrants has reportedly been stranded at the border. A Chile-Peru binational committee is set to meet to discuss the issue. (T13, El Mostrador, Buenos Aires Times, DW, AFP, El Comercio, EFE)
This is not the first time migrants have been stranded at the Peru-Chile border due to militarized responses. Paying subscribers have access to the full archive of the AMB, and can read more about a previous such case in AMB 4/24/23.
🇦🇷 Argentina
A REMHU paper explores trends in Brazilian migration to Argentina over the last 30 years.
Borders and Enforcement
🇦🇷 Argentina
The Milei administration’s creation of the National Migration Agency under the Ministry of Security (see AMB 11/17/25) is meant to create “an immigration police force modeled after the U.S. Border Patrol,” says El País.
🇺🇸 United States
“Although the current Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda is the most aggressive we’ve seen in modern history, the hyper-focus on the current moment detracts from the longer history of how we got here. Trump is wielding tools created for him by Democrats and Republicans over many decades,” explains Austin Kocher at his Substack, highlighting the launch of the Mapping Deportations project, which “examines the data, policy, and racial ideologies behind immigration policy from 1790 to today, and integrates this deep research into an engaging and interactive website portfolio that is easy to recommend for teachers, students, and researchers looking for a single, comprehensive source of vetted information.”
🇨🇦 Canada
Police involvement in a recent immigration enforcement worksite raid in Calgary has sparked concern among some, reports The Tyee, noting, “Canada has been removing record numbers of people from the country. In 2024, CBSA removed 17,357 people. The agency reported 15,207 in 2023. As of Sept. 30 this year, CBSA has removed 12,697 people.”
More on Migration
🇻🇨 St. Vincent and the Grenadines
“Opposition Declares Election Win in St Vincent, Paving the Way for a (Citizenship by Investment) Program” (IMI)