Americas Migration Brief - March 2, 2026
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎Regional
An UNESCO report examines recognition of qualifications and title validation for refugees and displaced persons in Latin America and the Caribbean.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
“Activists and migrant advocates are calling on the government to extend the ongoing migrant registration process, warning that many indigenous migrants — particularly members of the Warao community are at risk of being left out due to a lack of documentation and limited access to information,” reports the Guardian. (see AMB 2/2/26)
The registration period for the regularization program ended on Wednesday, with more than 27,000 applications reportedly submitted, per the Express. “Of that figure, 23,342 applications were from Venezuelan nationals.” 16,829 of the applications were for children.
🇧🇷 Brazil
“Operation Horizon in São Paulo helped regularize nearly 12,800 migrants in 2025,” reports MigraMundo, explaining, “Initially launched in January 2022, Operation Horizon aims to facilitate assistance and regularize documents for immigrants in vulnerable situations in the city of São Paulo and its surrounding areas.”
🇨🇱 Chile
Chile’s Supreme Court ruled that a migrant was not permitted by law to regularize their status after more than 5 years of irregular residence in the country, asserting that the 5-year bar on residency applications for irregular entry cannot be served while residing irregularly in the country. (Infomigra)
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
“During the 2025 school year, the Costa Rican education system served 64,095 foreign students, of which more than 80% came from Nicaragua,” reports Onda Local, highlighting some of the challenges migrants face with the education system.
🇺🇸 United States
Countering a common critique from anti-immigration rhetoric, Alex Nowrasteh and Jerome Famularo on Substack dive into the data on public benefits use by immigrants in the US, finding that even when including immigrants’ children in the analysis, “immigrants and their children still use less welfare per person than native-born American adults and their dependent children… in total, they used 25 percent less welfare per capita.”
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to ban families with any member who is undocumented from living in federally subsidized housing,” reports NPR.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎Regional
“At least 7,667 people died or went missing on migration routes worldwide in 2025, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM)... In the Americas, 409 deaths were recorded in 2025, the lowest annual total since IOM began collecting data in 2014. This is likely due to fewer people taking dangerous irregular pathways, such as crossing the Darien Jungle or the US-Mexico border. However, lags in reporting from officials means that the figures for 2025 in the Americas likely will not be finalized until mid-2026.” (press release)
🇧🇷 Brazil
Heavy rains displaced more than 3,500 in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, notes IOM.
🇲🇽 Mexico
Two young Haitian girls were found dead in a septic tank at a state-run DIF shelter for migrant families in southern Mexico. An investigation is underway as advocates express concern; one Haitian migrants rights group has brought up “previous reports of alleged abuse, food rationing and irregularities in social assistance management within facilities overseen by DIF-Oaxaca.” (The Haitian Times, El País)
The New Humanitarian highlights how tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in Tapachula in southern Mexico over the last year, stranded and prevented from moving further north to find greater opportunities while they lodge asylum claims. “The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, known by its Spanish acronym COMAR, has yet to release data for the rest of 2025. But local media reported that more than 20,000 people from Haiti have applied for asylum in Tapachula – the largest number of any nationality. Local activists also estimate that there are around 18,000 to 20,000 Venezuelans in Chiapas, mostly in Tapachula.” (see also last week’s AMB)
“Without a humanitarian visitor card, people need to be granted asylum in order to have legal status to move freely throughout Mexico. By law, asylum claims are supposed to be decided within 45 days, but people The New Humanitarian spoke to said they had been waiting for a response for anywhere from six months to over one year. To keep their applications active, they have to sign in at a COMAR office in-person every 15 days.”
🇺🇸 United States
“Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind refugee from Burma who Border Patrol agents dropped off at a doughnut shop Thursday and left to find his way home, 5 miles away, has been found dead,” reports Investigative Post, noting that the agents did not notify his attorney or family, who spent days searching for him and opened a missing persons case.
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to let it end TPS for Syria, as well as “decide broader questions about the president’s power to make similar decisions in other cases,” per CNN. Several efforts by the Trump administration to cancel TPS for various nationalities have become mired in the courts.
“The U.S. aims to process 4,500 refugee applications from white South Africans per month, far above President Donald Trump’s stated refugee program cap, and is installing trailers on embassy property in Pretoria to support the effort,” reports Reuters, noting, “refugee applications from other areas have been severely curtailed.”
“Legal advocates filed a motion Tuesday seeking to stop U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents from urging immigrant children entering the country without their parents to voluntarily deport themselves, reports AP, explaining that under a policy introduced by the Trump administration last year, children are pressured to “self-deport” prior to reaching a shelter and attorney or parental guidance—“If children decline to voluntarily return, the policy threatens to detain them for long periods of time, arrest and prosecute their adult sponsors living in the U.S., and bar them from applying for a visa in the future.”
“The Soft Suspension of Habeas Corpus: ICE is ignoring habeas corpus orders so routinely that a federal judge is threatening criminal contempt. New filings from Minnesota show what a de facto suspension of due process looks like.” (Austin Kocher on Substack)
“ICE whistleblower warns new recruits are receiving “defective” training” (CBS)
“Inside Trump’s purge of U.S. immigration courts” (Axios)
“A long-running lawsuit claiming that a private prison contractor broke federal and Colorado law by forcing immigration detainees to work moved closer to trial Wednesday after the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a bid by the company to toss out the case,” reports Politico.
🇨🇦 Canada
“A Surrey farm has been ordered to pay $435,000 for breaching migrant worker laws in the largest penalty of its kind ever issued in the province… The penalty to Kanwar Walia is the second largest ever handed to a Canadian company for breaching laws meant to protect temporary foreign workers and those under the International Mobility Program,” reports BIV.
Meanwhile, “An Ontario court has cleared a major hurdle for migrant farm workers to pursue a Charter challenge against Ottawa for systemic racism and discrimination,” reports Toronto Star.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎Regional
Independent of the full free movement regime enjoyed by four member states, CARICOM leaders have agreed “to include several categories of aviation industry personnel to the list of those eligible to live and work freely in the regional single market,” reports Demerara Waves.
“The British Virgin Islands (BVI) will not agree to free movement of Caribbean nationals if it is granted full membership in the CARICOM, Premier Natalio Wheatley has said,” in part due to its non-sovereign status as a British Overseas Territory, reports CWI, adding, “Bermuda has already received approval from the United Kingdom to advance its application but has similarly indicated it will not accept free movement provisions.”
“The BVI is also pursuing full membership in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), though Wheatley indicated a similar position on free movement would likely apply.” (CWI)
Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister said that while the country “agrees in principle with full and free movement, it cannot implement it ‘at this time,’” per St. Vincent Times.
“Fear, not technical barriers, continues to stall full freedom of movement across the Caribbean, according to Saint Lucia’s former UN and CARICOM ambassador Earl Huntley.” (St. Lucia Times)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
CARICOM leaders met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the bloc’s summit, agreeing to develop “a Cooperation Framework appropriate to the 21st century to support the needs and interests of the Caribbean Community and the USA. This framework should address a structured Migration Programme, security cooperation, trade and investment, disaster recovery, human development and technical assistance,” notes St. Vincent Times.
“The United States is deporting thousands of third country nationals to Mexico using coercive and deceptive tactics, including enforced disappearances, in violation of U.S. law and in order to circumvent limits on who Mexico is willing to accept,” says a Refugees International report investigating US-Mexico third country deportations and calling for Mexico to “mitigate the harm of these removals and provide those subject to removal more rights, support, and say in how they are treated.”
“The United States is deporting thousands of third country nationals to Mexico using coercive and deceptive tactics, including enforced disappearances, in violation of U.S. law and in order to circumvent limits on who Mexico is willing to accept.”
“Despite the worsening humanitarian crisis on the island, the US continues to deport Cubans to the island, removing at least six Cubans with alleged criminal records in February. Historically, such deportations were rare because Cuba’s government had refused to accept the return of nationals with criminal convictions… As CEDA Executive Director María José Espinosa said in El País, ‘The fact that the recent flight included people with records of serious crimes suggests a possible shift—whether temporary or strategic—in Cuba’s stance toward the migration negotiations between the two governments.’” (CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief)
Brazil’s Lula plans to meet Trump in DC in March to discuss a variety of topics, including immigration. (Reuters)
🇧🇪🇸🇷 Suriname and Belgium
“A delegation of Surinamese nursing instructors from the UTOS Foundation and Quality College Suriname has traveled to Belgium for a professional knowledge exchange program. The program aims to strengthen nursing education and training programs within these institutions… The exchange takes place within the framework of the Skills Mobility Partnership (SMP) between Suriname and Belgium,” reports Suriname Herald.
🇧🇿 Belize
“The International Organization for Migration (IOM), with funding from the European Union (EU), handed over additional Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) equipment to the Ministry of Immigration. The donation of MIDAS expands support for Belize’s ongoing modernization of border management technology,” reports BBN.
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
“The Cayman Islands government is moving to further amend immigration legislation ahead of debate in Parliament next week, introducing provisions to grandfather in certain existing status applications and clarify eligibility rules,” reports Gleaner.
Labor Migration
🇧🇷 Brazil
“Brazil granted over 60,000 work visas to foreign professionals in 2025, a 28% increase compared to the previous year,” reports MigraMundo.
🇺🇸 United States
The TN visa for professionals from Canada and Mexico “remains remarkably underutilized relative to the scale of the labor market challenges the US now faces,” per CGD. “Unlike the H-1B, the TN visa has no annual cap, no lottery, and no years-long backlog. It does not require congressional action to expand. Employers who can identify qualified Canadian or Mexican professionals in TN-listed occupations can hire them quickly and with minimal bureaucratic friction. The visa is renewable indefinitely, and the process is familiar to firms that operate across North American borders.”
“Only about 70 employers have paid a $100,000 Trump fee on H-1B workers from outside the US since it was imposed through a September White House proclamation,” reports Bloomberg, noting, “That fee was the most restrictive step by the Trump administration so far targeting skilled foreign workers amid a wider immigration crackdown.”
An American Immigration Lawyers Association policy brief highlights the Trump administration’s “attacks on legal immigration.”
Migrants in Transit
🌎Regional
Folha examines Cuban migration routes to Brazil, noting that some use Brazil as a point of transit en route to Uruguay: “Until 2025, Cubans first flew to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, where a coyote would wait to transport them overland through the Amazon to French Guiana. From there, they crossed into Brazil via Oiapoque (AP), the city that recorded the highest number of Cuban entries into Brazilian territory last year… While at least 21,600 Cubans entered Brazil in 2025, nearly 15,000 left… The main exit point is Santana do Livramento (RS), a small border city where it is difficult to determine exactly where Brazil ends and Uruguay’s Rivera begins. Through that crossing, 5,400 Cubans left Brazil last year alone.”
See also a new CEDA fact sheet, “What You Need to Know About Cuban Migration.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Fewer migrants are arriving in Juárez, a Mexican border city of nearly 1.7 million people located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Migrant shelters in the city are operating at about 20% capacity,” reports NCR, adding, though, “Migrants in Juárez are staying longer in shelters that until two years ago were serving as temporary lodgings, straining resources in a time when shelter directors and others who assist migrants say some international donors are cutting back funding.”
🇬🇵 Guadeloupe
“In 2022, 5,400 people who were living in another French region in 2021 moved to Guadeloupe, while 5,700 Guadeloupeans left the archipelago to settle elsewhere in France,” reports France-Antilles, citing a French national statistics bureau study and highlighting “an exodus of 18-24 year olds.”
Borders and Enforcement
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
“On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, Costa Rican authorities dismantled a migrant trafficking organization known as “Los Talibanes,” which operated with violence in the border area with Nicaragua,” including around Los Chiles and Las Tablillas. The group was involved both in Nicaraguan-Costa Rican migration, but also northbound migration through the Americas en route to the US in recent years. (EFE)
🇦🇷 Argentina
Argentina has announced a new Center for Migration and Border Information Analysis (CAIMF) “to organize the system and strengthen border control,” integrating and coordinating across government agencies. (EFE)
🇺🇸 United States
“How to Build a Future Without Family Detention” -- including a history of alternatives tried in the past and recommended legislative fixes. (Securing America’s Promise)