Americas Migration Brief - June 8, 2026
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Table of Contents
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“In a yet unpublished Federal Register filing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was looking to tighten rules around work authorizations, known as EADs, particularly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.
“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.