Americas Migration Brief - April 7, 2025
Welcome to the Americas Migration Brief! If you find this newsletter useful, please consider sharing with a friend or colleague.
Se puede acceder aquí a una versión en español del boletín traducida por inteligencia artificial.
Consulte aqui uma versão em português do boletim traduzida por inteligência artificial.
Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
PAHO looks at migrants’ health, including access to health insurance schemes, across the Americas.
🇪🇨 Ecuador
The recent cancellation of the Virte II regularization process for certain Venezuelans in Ecuador (see AMB 3/17/25) has left many in continued limbo. Around 3,000 migrants had their applications under review, while “Daniel Regalado, of the Venezuelan Association in Ecuador, mentioned that the government's decision was a blow because there were people waiting for documents from Venezuela to begin the process,” reports El Universo. An estimated 10,000 Venezuelan migrants that would have been eligible were not able to access the process.
“Migration has become a political strategy and a central theme of the presidential debate between Luisa González and Daniel Noboa. It has also been a focus of misinformation throughout the electoral campaign in Ecuador. Myths such as that Venezuelan migrants enter illegally, take away jobs, or increase violence have fueled xenophobia and misinformation,” reports Lupa Media. (see last week’s AMB)
🇨🇱 Chile
A Fundación porCausa report looking at the economic impact of migration in Chile finds that “although the migrant population represents 8.7% of the total population, their contribution to Chile's GDP reaches 10.3%... Furthermore, each migrant contributes an average of $604 net annually to the state, which is almost four times more than native-born citizens,” reports El Mostrador. (see also SJM)
Resumen highlights the challenges of bureaucracy and obstacles to degree and certification recognition for migrants in Chile.
🇺🇸 United States
Immigration Impact and MPI both explore access to education for immigrant children and the challenges faced by current policies, including looking at state-level efforts to impede or facilitate access to education.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“Haitians living in the Dominican Republic locality of Hoyo de Fruisa were harassed by protesters from the Antigua Orden Dominicana (AOD), the Dominican nationalist group, on March 30 at an anti-Haitian protest that calls to deport Haitian migrants. The protest turned violent as nationalist demonstrators pushed past security barricades, bypassing guards attempting to block them from entering the Haitian community,” reports The Haitian Times. 32 individuals were arrested, although “No injuries were reported,” per AFP.
🇪🇨 Ecuador
An estimated 93,000 individuals in Ecuador were internally displaced due to violence in the 2024 calendar year, according to 3iSolution.
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
16 Chinese migrants deported by the US to Costa Rica in February have requested asylum in the Central American country, reports El Observador. 94 of the original 200 migrants remain in the Catem shelter; 6 “escaped” from the shelter last month “and to date there are no further details about their whereabouts,” per Tico Times. (see last week’s AMB)
🇵🇦 Panama
An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) report highlights findings and recommendations from the body’s working visit to Panama and the Darien Gap in February 2025. Recommendations include for Panama to guarantee effective access to immigration and asylum procedures throughout the entirety of the country.
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Starved of funds, it’s unclear whether the Mexican asylum system will be able to process claims and provide a modicum of support to those left stranded by the end of CBP One. Also uncertain is whether people applying for protection in Mexico now see it as a long-term solution or just a temporary measure to bide time before once again trying to reach the US,” says The New Humanitarian, examining access to the asylum system in Mexico.
🇺🇸 United States
“The U.S. said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over South Sudan's failure to accept the return of its repatriated citizens, at a time when many in Africa fear that country could return to civil war,” reports Reuters; no new visas will be issued. The Guardian notes that the country has been designated for TPS since 2011, but the 133 current beneficiaries are set to have their status expire next month.
More broadly: “The travel ban on over 40 nations that allegedly fail to meet the administration’s vetting standards has been postponed without a new date set, report Francesca Chambers and Erin Mansfield of USA Today. The postponement comes after around 300 visas were revoked from individuals who came from some of these nations, Chambers and Mansfield note. Daniella Silva of NBC News highlights three of these students who are being detained in remote Louisiana detention centers. Karina Tsui of CNN recaps the recent stories of visa revocations.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily; see AMB 3/17/25)
“A federal judge in California on Monday agreed to delay the Trump administration's move to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that currently shields roughly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants from deportation,” reports CBS.
“Immigrant-rights advocates say the U.S. government is using a checklist of "unreliable indicators" to decide whether Venezuelan men are members of the gang Tren de Aragua and subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” reports NPR.
“Tren de Aragua is not invading America. While the research organization InSight Crime, which has tracked the gang for years, has found that it does have a limited presence in the United States, researchers have seen no evidence that it has organized cells in the country that cooperate with one another, much less receive directions from abroad. The exaggerated government claims and ensuing public concern about the group’s activities in the United States amount to a classic moral panic, in which a handful of crimes are cited by politicians as evidence of an urgent threat to society,” write Rebecca Hanson, David Smilde, and Verónica Zubillaga at The New York Times.
The Trump administration is intentionally moving immigration cases to Louisiana due to conservative-leaning courts there, according to Axios.
A TRAC report examines access to legal counsel in immigration court, showing how access differs by language spoken, noting that Creole and Spanish speakers have the poorest levels of access, whereas the vast majority of Punjabi and Mandarin speakers are legally represented.
“A federal judge in Northern California ordered the restoration of legal funds for migrant children who enter the United States alone, temporarily reversing a Trump administration decision last month that had left children at risk of deportation,” reports The New York Times. (see last week’s AMB)
“Individuals expelled from the United States to Panama in February 2025 without being allowed to present asylum claims appear to have psychological and physical symptoms consistent with their reports of torture, mistreatment, and/or persecution in their countries of origin… They had no chance to have their credible fear of return objectively assessed. Their legal and human right to seek asylum, guaranteed under international law, U.S. law, and Panamanian law, has been completely denied.” (Physicians for Human Rights)
“A Chinese woman detained by U.S. border officers for overstaying a visitor visa died by suicide while being held at a border patrol station in Arizona,” reports The New York Times, noting concerns “about whether officers had properly conducted welfare checks on the woman,” leading to a “preventable death,” per Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
“Flight attendants working on the chartered planes carrying deported migrants speak out on the directions they get for removal flights, reports McKenzie Funk of ProPublica. Former and current cabin crew expressed their concerns about their inability to treat their passengers humanely in those flights, Funk highlights. One flight attendant described the training she and others received: "‘If a fire occurs in the cabin, if we land on water, don’t check on the immigrants. Just make sure that you and the guards and the people that work for the government get off.’"” (via The Forum Daily)
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “The Trump administration sent 17 more detained people—10 Salvadorans and 7 Venezuelans—from Guantánamo to El Salvador’s Center for Containment of Terrorism (CECOT) prison. Federal courts are probing violations of a restraining order against the use of the Alien Enemies Act, as we continue to learn about people removed to the Salvadoran prison despite a lack of criminal background. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recognized that at least one man, Kilmar Ábrego García, was removed in error, but the administration is not asking El Salvador to release him.” Furthermore, “A Boston federal judge barred the Trump administration from deporting migrants to third countries without allowing them to argue that they might be harmed.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
“IOM, in collaboration with the Government of St Kitts and Nevis, hosted a two-day workshop aimed at addressing climate-induced displacement and its implications for human security in the Caribbean.” (Dominica News Online)
Belize was the first CARICOM country to host the bloc’s National Border Control Officers Attachment Programme, reports Channel 5. CARICOM border control officers from Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago spent a week in Belize, per CARICOM—“Guyana will host participants from Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines from 7 to 11 April 2025. Participants from Belize, Dominica, Haiti and Jamaica will then have an opportunity to visit another CARICOM Member State.”
The Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) and partners hosted a regional forum on migration and consular coordination. (SELA)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
Latin American and Caribbean nations should “(build) a coalition committed to working together and developing a phased migration plan that engages Trump’s agenda not as responses to isolated threats but as a regional plan of action that privileges humanitarian ethics and viable integration options,” writes Sara McKinnon at The New Humanitarian.
James Bosworth at Latin America Risk Report notes that Nicaragua is “happily accepting deportation flights from the United States with no complaint. The Ortega regime is hiding any media coverage or public records of the flights, but journalists and those tracking aircraft movements have registered them. The Trump administration has been practically silent on the issue of Nicaragua since taking office. That signals there is likely an unpublished agreement between the two governments.”
When US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited Mexico she sought an agreement on sharing biometric information and for Mexico to reinforce its border with Guatemala—Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum asserted that no such agreement was signed and that it would be better to focus on development than enforcement with Guatemala. (La Jornada)
The Nation examines Trump’s “outsourcing” of US enforcement efforts, noting that the Trump administration has “(used) geography to evade legal constraints,” particularly in relation to asylum seekers.
With deportations to El Salvador, the Trump administration “intends to treat the prison as a black site where migrants have no constitutional rights whatsoever and may be subject to any treatment whatsoever—including indefinite detention, forced labor, torture, or death,” says Slate.
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele will visit the White House and the US next week to discuss migration, among other topics. (EFE)
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is calling for the UN to advocate for the release of the Venezuelan migrants deported by the US to El Salvador. (Reuters)
Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa visited Trump in Florida, where they discussed migration, among other topics. (El Universo)
“U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts Include Up to $2.3 Billion for Migration Management and Displacement Programs, MPI Analysis Finds” (MPI)
Labor Migration
🇸🇽 Sint Maarten
“The Dutch Caribbean territory of St. Maarten is offering cash, plane tickets and an extended hotel stay to attract professionals and students back home” and combat brain drain, reports Loop.
🇸🇻 El Salvador
It is difficult to obtain official information about the Salvadoran government’s labor mobility program and agreements with partner countries, according to a critique at elsalvador.com.
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
According to a March poll, 47% of Venezuelans want to migrate in the next six months, with the leading destinations of interest Spain (23%), Colombia (15%), the US (11%), Chile (9%), and Argentina (6%). (El Tiempo)
🇨🇱 Chile
EFE reports from the Chile-Bolivia border, highlighting the perilous conditions for often unprepared and poorly guided migrants, Chile’s efforts at border enforcement, and noting that “Between 30 and 40 people, according to sources from the Investigative Police (PDI), cross from Bolivia through this unauthorized crossing point every day at sunset.”
Borders and Enforcement
🌎 Regional
Hora Cero highlights Central American countries’ efforts to beef up border enforcement on behalf of the US, often through military and security forces.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader has announced 15 new measures to counter irregular Haitian migration, reports CDN. The measures include sending 1,500 additional soldiers to the border, accelerating border wall construction, increasing consequences for those that hire migrants without documentation, and establishing a “Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Immigration Affairs” to target irregular migration-related crimes.
The Dominican Republic has deported over 180,000 Haitian migrants in the six months since the beginning of Abinader’s mass deportation initiative, meant to deport 10,000 migrants per week. 86,406 have been deported in the first three months of 2025. (Diario Libre)
“Immigration operations increase in the Dominican Republic” (EFE)
🇺🇸 United States
“U.S. Has Spent $40 Million to Jail About 400 Migrants at Guantánamo: The disclosure of the tab so far came after five senators visited the offshore operation, which they condemned as a waste of resources.” (New York Times)
“While the Trump administration boasts of record numbers of self-deportations , without providing verifiable official figures, migrants and immigration lawyers warn that using CBP Home to voluntarily deport oneself is no different than a regular legal expulsion. The difference is that there is no hearing before a judge and, therefore, no signed voluntary departure order. But re-entry restrictions apply equally,” reports El País.
““Initially, it sounded to immigrants like they were being told, 'We know you've been here illegally, but if you leave using this app, then maybe you'll be able to come back eventually and live the American dream. If you don't use it, you'll never be able to come back.' But the CBP Home app doesn't help you with that. So it's like a trap,” says immigration attorney Jonathan Shaw.”
“The U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday returned to Haiti almost 100 people who were stopped offshore of the island country in an overloaded migrant boat,” reports Miami Herald.
More on Migration
🌎 Regional
An MPI report explores international student migration with a focus on the US and Canada, as well as the UK and Australia.