Americas Migration Brief - April 27, 2026
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
A pair of UNHCR publications (1, 2) “show how supportive public policies and partnerships with private companies can drive long-term solutions for refugees while creating prosperity in host countries,” per a press release.
“UNHCR engaged with more than 1,500 companies across the region in programmes ranging from relocation to specialized training. At the same time, national and local governments supported those efforts through policies and concrete measures that facilitated access to documentation, formal employment, and financial services, among others. Flagship initiatives such as the Internal Relocation Programme in Brazil and the Local Integration Programme (PIL) in Mexico provided stable integration opportunities for more than 200,000 people over the last decade, while contributing to the local economy and tax base.”
🇧🇿 Belize
IOM, UNICEF, and UNHCR signed a joint work plan that “prioritizes birth registration, child protection, and efforts to prevent and reduce statelessness. UNICEF, IOM, and UNHCR will support government institutions to ensure that every child is registered at birth and able to access essential services including health care, education, and protection,” per a press release.
🇨🇴 Colombia
Colombia has extended the deadline for applications for the PEP-Tutor regularization program, reports Infobae.
🇬🇾 Guyana
“Venezuela was once home to thousands of Guyanese who migrated decades ago to benefit from a thriving Venezuelan economy. Today, thousands of Venezuelans are working in Guyana – ‘the fastest growing economy’ in the hemisphere since its discovery of oil. Many Venezuelans work in mining and construction while many operate food businesses and are employed within the hospitality sector,” reports CIJN, investigating life in Guyana along the border with Venezuela, including for Indigenous Warao migrants.
🇺🇸 United States
“The Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke, part of a push to increase the pace of denaturalizations by assigning the cases to prosecutors in dozens of U.S. attorney’s offices across the country,” reports New York Times, noting, “It also comes just months after Trump administration officials ordered Department of Homeland Security staffers to refer upward of 200 denaturalization cases a month to the DOJ… Between 1990 and 2017, the government filed 305 denaturalization cases, an average of 11 per year.”
A Georgetown Immigration Law Journal paper “argues that the work authorization afforded to beneficiaries of TPS represents a due process interest in property because of the essential nature of work authorization, as well as the fact that beneficiaries of TPS have a legitimate claim of entitlement to their work authorization. Because work authorization represents a property interest, beneficiaries of TPS cannot be deprived of their work authorization without the procedural due process guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇪🇨 Ecuador
A CDH report investigates internal displacement in Guayaquil, Ecuador. “The report recommends that the government recognize internal displacement caused by violence, create a single national registry of displaced persons, and implement a public policy for victims that includes safe relocation programs, rental subsidies, housing improvements, and comprehensive rehabilitation of affected neighborhoods,” notes EFE.
🇨🇼 Curaçao
“The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) determined that Curacao violated the human rights of seven Venezuelan citizens detained on the island in 2019, in a ruling that again puts the treatment of migrants in the Dutch Caribbean and the responsibility of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under scrutiny. According to the ruling, the authorities failed to justify the use of force during an incident at a detention center, nor did they guarantee basic rights such as timely access to legal assistance,” reports Crónicas del Caribe.
🇧🇷 Brazil
“A group of civil society organizations working to defend the rights of migrants and refugees has released a public manifesto in support of an Egyptian family that has been detained for 18 days in the restricted area of Guarulhos International Airport, in Greater São Paulo,” reports Metrópoles. The mother is 34 weeks pregnant and has gestational diabetes. The family is awaiting a response for a humanitarian visa request, notes Folha.
🇨🇱 Chile
With Circular No. 014, the Kast administration has clarified the rules for registering the Chilean-born children of foreigners in the country. While Chile generally has jus soli citizenship rights, children born to “transient foreigners” do not receive citizenship; the new rules instruct officials to record the children of tourists as “child of a transient foreigner.” InfoMigra clarifies that this would not apply retroactively and is “merely an instruction for civil officers that does not modify the law or the Constitution as such, only providing guidelines on how these officials should operate… This does not prevent parents from registering their opposition in writing and requesting SERMIG to rule on the establishment of nationality as specified in the circular.”
“This is reminiscent of what happened in Chile between 1996 and 2014 when, in numerous cases, children in Chile were not registered as Chilean citizens due to their father’s immigration status, resulting in cases of stateless children and adolescents who were denied access to nationality and the corresponding basic rights. This led to the creation of the “Chile Recognizes” program in 2016 to address this situation,” says InfoMigra.
🇺🇸 United States
“A federal appeals court on Friday blocked President Trump’s directive suspending access to asylum and other legal protections for migrants unlawfully crossing the southern border… The Trump administration can ask the full D.C. Circuit to review the decision or appeal to the Supreme Court,” reports CBS, noting that the executive order introducing the policy was signed over a year ago on Trump’s first day back in office.
“Republican Representative Chip Roy is taking aim at free speech and freedom of religion, introducing a bill that would target immigrants who support ‘socialism, communism, Chinese communism, Marxism, or Islamic fundamentalism’ … The legislation would make any ‘alien’ who supports or has supported those ideologies ‘inadmissible, deportable, denaturalizable, and ineligible for naturalization,’” reports The New Republic, highlighting that the act was named to target New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
An AP investigation found concerning backgrounds among new ICE recruits, including agents who had “faced lawsuits that alleged misconduct in prior law enforcement jobs.”
Thomson Reuters fired a longtime employee shortly after she and colleagues “sent a letter to company management in February flagging that ICE could be using Thomson Reuters products unlawfully and asking for greater transparency about the company’s oversight of its contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.” (NPR)
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎🇨🇱 Chile and Regional
The Kast administration is attempting to restart Chile-Venezuela consular relations in order to facilitate the deportation of Venezuelan migrants in Chile, reports El País.
Chilean and Bolivian officials met to discuss migration and border coordination. (Infobae)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
DW examines the case of over a dozen Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian migrants being deported by the US to DR Congo (see last week’s AMB), noting that “all of them were under protection orders from the U.S. justice system and could not be sent to their countries of origin,” adding, “The Associated Press reported that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is providing humanitarian assistance to the deportees. It has also reportedly offered them assisted voluntary return to their countries of origin. David [a lawyer for one of the migrants] considers this coercion.”
El País highlights the stories of some of the deportees: “The deportees are hopeful that their respective governments will be able to repatriate them. Although both Cubillos and Rodelo maintain that returning to the country they fled under threat [Colombia] was not part of their original plan, they believe it is now their best option given the circumstances.”
“The Peruvian government is arranging for the delivery of safe-conduct passes for four of its citizens who have requested to return to the Andean country,” notes EFE.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in Iowa are attempting to send a Bolivian asylum seeker to DRC as well after a judge ruled he couldn’t be returned to Bolivia due to threat of torture. (Des Moines Register)
And: “After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo,” reports New York Times, noting, “The Afghans have been living in limbo in Qatar for over a year.”
For a third straight week, Costa Rica has received a group of third-country nationals deported by the US. The most recent group of 25 individuals hail from Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, China, India, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Bolivia, and Romania, reports EFE. (see last week’s AMB)
EFE adds that from the two previous flights, “of the 47 people received, 18 are in the assisted voluntary return program, 12 have stated they do not wish to return to their country of origin, and 2 have withdrawn from one or more of the options. The others have requested more information or have not yet communicated their decision.” Per AR, “A Kenyan woman who arrived in the country on the first flight of deportees from the United States is the first migrant to officially apply for asylum in Costa Rica.”
Paraguay received a first flight of third-country deportees from the US. The group of 16 deportees are from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Spain. EFE adds, “The agreement between both countries stipulates that a maximum of 25 people per month can arrive in Paraguay, provided they are Spanish-speaking and have the approval of the local authorities.”
🇩🇴🇪🇨 Ecuador and Dominican Republic
Ecuador and the Dominican Republic have signed an “Interinstitutional Agreement on Consular Cooperation, aimed at improving the mechanisms of assistance and protection to their citizens in third countries where they do not have their own consular representation.” (Listin Diario)
🇻🇪🇨🇴 Colombia and Venezuela
The leaders of Colombia and Venezuela met, discussing migration, among other issues. (Caracol)
Labor Migration
🇺🇸 United States
“Pull of the American Dream Weakens for China’s Best and Brightest: U.S. immigration hurdles and fear of crime, amplified by state media, have become reasons for Chinese talent to stay home” (WSJ)
A Georgetown Immigration Law Journal paper examines opportunities for healthcare worker migration to the US to address “persistent” shortages.
Migrants in Transit
🌎Regional
A Consultores 21 survey from February 2026 finds that 1 in 3 Venezuelans want to emigrate, reports El Impulso, noting, “the United States is no longer the primary destination on the migration radar, while countries like Colombia, Chile, and Peru remain relevant… Spain is emerging as a destination within a second wave of migration linked to family reunification.”
The New Humanitarian investigates what happened to the 300,000 migrants stranded in Mexico that had hoped to enter the US to seek asylum until the Trump administration shut down the CBP One app. Data is sparse; “One of the challenges when it comes to tracing what has happened to people undertaking reverse journeys has been keeping track of the various routes that have sprung up – especially with the diminished capacity of UN agencies and NGOs.”
Return migration to South America by sea to skip the Darien Gap has reportedly dropped. “One of the main reasons for the recent drop is because ticket prices charged by smugglers have increased from around $100 to about $300… Panamanian migration authorities are now stopping people in a town called Nuevo Tonosí, north of Miramar – the gateway to the Caribbean route – and only allowing through those who have enough money to pay the inflated ticket price.”
Northbound migration to Mexico hasn’t stopped altogether, though, as The New Humanitarian notes that “many people – especially Cubans and Venezuelans – head to cities in the Yucatán Peninsula, like Cancún, to join established communities,” among other areas in Mexico.
As migration has risen in Latin America in recent years, birthrates have also fallen across the region, reports Americas Quarterly. “Rapid rural-to-urban migration is part of the picture. Latin America is now the developing world’s most urban region, with over 80% of its population living in cities. Birth rates are lower in cities than in rural areas, but rural birth rates are also falling, narrowing the gap across the region.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Hundreds of migrants, most of them from Haiti, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on foot Tuesday seeking better living conditions elsewhere in Mexico. Migrant caravans like the one that left Tapachula used to aim for the U.S. border. But many of the migrants leaving Tapachula on Tuesday said they had lost hope of making it to the U.S. due to the restrictions that the Trump administration has placed on asylum seekers. Instead, the migrants said they wanted to settle down in large Mexican cities, where they may be able to find work and file asylum claims,” reports AP.
Borders and Enforcement
🇨🇱 Chile
A Senate commission rejected the Kast government’s proposed bill to make irregular entry a criminal offense. (Diario UChile, La Tercera)
“Under the old Decree Law 1094, in effect until 2021, irregular entry was a criminal offense. And it was precisely that last year—when the penalty was still fully in force—that registered the highest number of irregular entries in recent history. Since then, with an exclusively administrative system, under the new Immigration and Foreigners Law, entries have steadily decreased,” note law academics Tomás Pascual and Macarena Rodríguez at El País, adding, “In a context of fiscal constraints and complex criminal prosecution challenges, adding a significant burden of new cases to the criminal justice system by criminalizing irregular entry is problematic.”
A Centro de Políticas Migratorias report analyzes the proposed law, finding that “criminalizing irregular entry could violate the fundamental rights of migrants. With respect to the effectiveness of criminal sanctions, international evidence suggests that criminalizing irregular migration is ineffective and generates adverse effects, such as the growth of human trafficking networks and the precarious situation of migrants. In Chile, previous experiences have not significantly reduced irregular entries and have resulted in a low number of convictions.”
Some irregular migrants who would like to voluntarily leave Chile face obstacles to do so, reports El País; challenges include “the cost of airfare, fines for entering the country illegally, and the requirement to obtain a permit for legal departure.” If unable to surpass these, migrants must leave the country irregularly across the border.
The Kast government has reportedly progressed 40% of the way with its trenchbuilding efforts along Chile’s northern border. (El Norte)
🇨🇴 Colombia
“The number of foreigners denied entry to Colombia on suspicion of sex tourism and sexual exploitation has registered a significant increase in 2026,” reports RCN.
🇺🇸 United States
Centrist think tank Third Way published a memo, “How Democrats Can Rebuild the Public’s Trust in Immigration Enforcement.” Recommendations include to “Restore accountability through fair, independent, and transparent processes for addressing abuses committed under Trump,” and to “Adopt a smart enforcement agenda that prioritizes threats to public safety and the integrity of the immigration system.”
A Georgetown Immigration Law Journal paper reviews the Supreme Court’s 2024 end of the Chevron deference, exploring the impact on immigration removal adjudications: “Deference generally meant that courts upheld the U.S. administrative agencies’ interpretation of the immigration statute and agency orders of removal of noncitizens from the United States… Chevron deference for years had adverse consequences on noncitizens.”
“Republicans are exploring whether to use the 2026 farm bill as yet another vehicle to funnel money to ICE,” reports Migrant Insider.
“A federal appeals court issued an order Wednesday blocking a California law requiring federal immigration agents to wear identification, another blow to the state’s attempts to limit the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics,” says AP.
“‘This Will Kill People’: Laredo Landowners Fight Wall and Buoy Plan Threatening Flood-Prone Communities. As federal officials fast-track billions in border wall construction and floating buoy barriers, local leaders and residents say they’re in the dark, and fear the worst.” (The Border Chronicle)