Americas Migration Brief - February 23, 2026

Feb 23, 2026

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Table of Contents

Integration and Development

🇨🇷 Costa Rica

“The General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners (DGME) of Costa Rica “simplified” the requirements for issuing the Foreigner’s Migratory Identity Document (Dimex) that are in process, due to a large backlog in the delivery of the document,” reports Confidencial.

A Fundación Sin Límites report examines migration policy and trends in Costa Rica with an added focus on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border region at La Cruz and Upala. The report finds that the cantons face “significant institutional shortcomings” and a lack of capacity to respond to migration, relying heavily on NGOs and international cooperation, notes Confidencial.

🇨🇱 Chile

The Boric administration has published the decree updating the process to recognize and (re)validate foreign degrees in Chile. (InfoMigra)

🇰🇾 Cayman Islands

“The Cayman Islands Government has circulated a proposed schedule of immigration fee increases, including fees for work permits, residency and status, which it says are needed to help balance this year’s budget. However, the planned March 1 start date has been cancelled, and no new date has yet been announced,” reports Gleaner.

Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights

🌎Regional

“Of the nearly 15 million migrants in Latin America, one in four is a child or adolescent—the highest proportion of migrant children and adolescents in the world. Children are highly vulnerable during migration journeys because they are exposed to violations of their personal integrity and deprivation of basic services such as food, health, and education. The situation is even more critical considering that, in 2023, 70% of migrant children were under 11 years old,” writes the Inter-American Dialogue’s Lucas Martins Carvalho at La Silla Vacía, emphasizing the importance of protecting migrant children.
- A NiñezYA report finds that 28,846 children in Colombia were displaced between January and June 2025, notes El Tiempo.

🇲🇽 Mexico

“From 2019 to 2025, roughly 47,000 Haitian nationals were listed as refugees in Mexico by the UNHCR. But increasingly, the number arriving from Central America find themselves stuck in Tapachula. A key reason is Mexico’s policy that forbids asylum seekers from leaving the state where they first filed for protection… The asylum process is supposed to last 45 business days. These days, with fewer COMAR staff members, the wait can take more than one year,” reports The Haitian Times.

🇵🇪 Peru

In Peru, recent “modifications introduced to the migration and international protection system paint a complex and, in many respects, alarming picture. In particular, the reforms implemented to “prevent the misuse” of asylum erode basic rights and guarantees of refugees and migrants. This, it should be emphasized, occurs within a political context of growing hostility toward migration,” says IDEHPUCP.
- “The reforms described cannot be understood in isolation, but rather within the context of an electoral process where anti-immigration rhetoric is increasingly prevalent. To date, several presidential and congressional candidates have expressed their intention to maintain, and in some cases, strengthen immigration policies with a security-oriented approach.”

🇪🇨 Ecuador

RID “examines how large-scale mining and oil extraction in Ecuador’s Amazon systematically displaces Indigenous communities through ‘dispossessive engineered migration.’ … The article argues that displacement is not an unintended consequence, but a deliberate strategy driven by state and corporate interests, effectively treating Indigenous Territories as disposable assets.”

🇨🇴 Colombia

A paper at Disasters investigates Colombia’s response and granting of protection to Venezuelan migrants, “(highlighting) how Colombia leveraged institutional legacies from its internal conflict and displacement crises to shape its response.”

🇧🇷 Brazil

Although Brazil has been viewed as a humanitarian model in its response to Venezuelan migration, certain moves in recent years have limited access to protection in the country, according to João Carlos Jarochinski Silva and Gisela P. Zapata at Latinoamérica21. They write, “The death of Evans Osei Wusu (Ghanaian citizen) in 2024, after falling ill while awaiting authorization to enter Brazil at Guarulhos International Airport, exposed serious human rights concerns in these border spaces. Rather than strengthening protection mechanisms, the state has increasingly relied on visa requirements and other administrative barriers that prevent some people from even applying for asylum in the country… Another concerning trend is the requirement of private sponsorship for humanitarian visas. While initially praised as an innovative and humane policy, this mechanism increasingly shifts responsibility away from the state.”
A forthcoming paper at Econometrica studies rural-urban migration in Brazil, finding that “over a decade, drought-induced immigration reduces informality, has no effect on unemployment, and increases the number of formal firms and jobs… in the short run, the informal sector absorbs the expanding labor force and acts as a “stepping-stone” to formality for firms and workers.”

🇺🇸 United States

“Jairo Garcia-Hernandez, a Guatemalan national, is the eighth reported death in ICE custody since the start of 2026 and almost the 40th since the start of the Trump administration,” reports Austin Kocher at his Substack.
“ICE Chief Admits Agents Seem to Have Lied About Why They Shot Someone: The Department of Justice has opened a criminal probe to investigate the ICE officers who claimed they shot a Venezuelan man out of self-defense.” (The New Republic)
The Trump administration is moving for ICE “to detain refugees who entered the U.S. lawfully but who have not formally obtained permanent residency — also known as green card — a year after their admission,” reports CBS, explaining, “Under federal law, refugees can apply for a green card a year after their arrival. Through the new memo, the Trump administration is arguing that those refugees who have not become permanent U.S. residents a year after coming to the country must return to government custody to have their cases reviewed and re-screened.”
- “This legalistic sleight of hand helps the Trump administration ensnare refugees in a trap set last year when USCIS slowed and then halted adjudication of adjustment of status applications by refugees. An estimated 100,000 people may be subject to this policy, which will inflict profound trauma on refugee families and communities across the country. The so-called “revetting” is as cruel as it is unnecessary: there is no need for it, as all resettled refugees have already been through an extensive vetting process before even arriving in the United States,” says a Refugees International statement.
“A proposed Trump administration regulation unveiled Friday would suspend the acceptance of asylum work permit applications until U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reaches the point where it decides all asylum cases within an average of 180 days. That requirement would almost certainly amount to indefinite pause on asylum-related work permits,” explains CBS.
“Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully,” reports Reuters.
Securing America’s Promise highlights the trauma of family detention for immigrant children, reviewing the history of family immigrant detention in the US since the Bush administration.
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting that “DHS is officially shut down—though ICE and CBP are funded—as its 2026 budget expired amid Democratic legislators’ demands for human rights and accountability reforms.”

🇨🇦 Canada

“Canada has issued 575,025 temporary resident permits to people affected by wars, violence and natural disasters through various special measures since 2022, but only a small fraction of them have made a refugee claim,” reports Toronto Star, adding, “Ottawa has reduced its annual humanitarian permanent resident intake from 10,000 in 2025 to 6,900 this year, and 5,000 for 2027 and 2028, leading to a 10-year wait for permanent status.”
Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) developed a “File Review” policy “which allowed asylum claims to be rapidly accepted in large numbers from a list of countries on the basis of the untested written application and documents in each file, and without refugees being questioned at a hearing. The policy appears to have been implemented unilaterally, without the approval of ministers or cabinet. For example, between January, 2019, and February, 2023, 24,599 asylum claimants were accepted without being asked a single question,” writes former IRB member James Yousif at the Globe and Mail, adding, “As I document in a new study for the C.D. Howe Institute, this policy is problematic. Not all asylum claims are truthful, and documents may be forged. But this is impossible to detect without asking questions.”
“Starting on May 1, sponsored refugees and asylum claimants will be asked to pay 30% of the costs of services including counselling and physiotherapy,” reports Toronto Star.

Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

🌎Regional

An ILO report examines labor market needs among CARICOM states as the Caribbean bloc looks to develop a regional Labour Migration Policy Framework. The report includes an analysis of the context of free movement in CARICOM, labor market characteristics in the region, labor migration governance and trends, and the role of climate change, closing with recommendations for free movement in CARICOM.

🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is negotiating an agreement with the US to receive third-country deportees from the North American country. (Observer)
“Four journalists investigating a secretive Trump administration effort to deport migrants to the African nation of Cameroon were detained on Tuesday,” reports New York Times. (see last week’s AMB)
The Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts “are degrading migration, asylum, and refugee-protection systems in refugee hosting countries,” says Refugees International, highlighting, “Asylum systems in Latin America have been particularly strained,” including in Costa Rica and Mexico.

🇲🇽 Mexico

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that she will soon send a reform initiative to the Congress related to the country’s National Migration Institute (INM). This includes changing the institution’s name to the “Human Mobility Institute.” (Infobae, La Jornada)
- Reform should include demilitarization, among other changes, according to experts consulted by El Universal.

Migrants in Transit

🇰🇾 Cayman Islands

“As Cayman puts preparations in place for a potential influx of Cuban migrants, a boat carrying 10 individuals managed to come ashore in very rough seas late on Saturday 31 Jan. on Little Cayman,” reports Cayman Compass. (see AMB 2/2/26)

Borders and Enforcement

🇨🇱 Chile

Chile recorded 26,000 irregular migrant entries in 2025, over a 50% drop from the peak number of entries in 2021, reports Diario UChile, highlighting border enforcement efforts under the (outgoing) Boric administration.

🇧🇸 The Bahamas

Facing prison overcrowding issues, the Bahamas has decided to deport 85 immigrant inmates from Haiti, Jamaica, and the US using the Prerogative of Mercy mechanism. (Radio Jamaica News)