Americas Migration Brief - August 10, 2026
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇨🇱 Chile
The Jesuit Migrant Service’s annual migration report on Chile investigates various facets of integration, as well as protection. The report indicates that migration to Chile has decelerated over recent years, but an estimated 336,984 migrants have an irregular status; La Tercera summarizes findings.
🇦🇷 Argentina
A Caref report analyzes—inlcuding legal and practical concerns—DNU 366/2025, which affects migrants and their access to healthcare, education, and family reunification; among other concerns. (see AMBs 5/19/25 and 7/6/26)
Relatedly, DNU 681/2026, which facilitates deportations and greater migration restrictionism, is “categorically unconstitutional,” writes Pablo Ceriani at Blog Foro Sur, detailing concerns. (see last week’s AMB)
Based on in-depth interviews, a paper at REMHU highlights the challenges faced by migrant women from Paraguay and Peru “who have aged in Argentina after decades of paid labor in the care sector.”
🇨🇴 Colombia
Ronal Rodríguez at El Espectador critiques the Petro administration’s integration efforts for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, outlining, now, the challenge of political inclusion of migrants for the new De La Espriella government.
A Migración Colombia report examines migration management from 2022-2026, during the Petro government.
🇧🇷 Brazil
A paper at REMHU investigates the sociodemographic profile of Venezuelan migrants working in southern Brazil’s meatpacking industry.
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
“The Cayman Islands government has proposed an initiative to provide citizenship status to an estimated 300 Cuban-Caymanian descendants. The proposal would include a working group to provide legal support to impacted families, tools to trace Cayman-Cuban ancestry, and possible solutions towards providing the group with status. Officials have affirmed that the proposal focuses solely on those with Cayman-Cuban ancestry who currently live in the Cayman Islands… With this proposal, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Caymanians who immigrated from Cuba would be granted citizenship,” explains CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.
🇺🇸 United States
“A work slowdown by the Trump administration’s immigration offices has exploded the backlog of applications for citizenship, green cards and work permits to an unprecedented 7.5 million people,” reports Axios, noting, “The delays have put potentially millions of people in legal immigration limbo — vulnerable to being arrested by ICE agents and deported, even if they’ve followed the rules to try to stay in the U.S.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“The Carney government has quietly walked back some of its cuts to a program providing temporary health-care coverage to refugees and asylum-seekers,” reports The Star. (see AMB 2/2/26)
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
Inter-American Dialogue highlights the role of civil society in protecting migrant children in Latin America.
🇲🇽 Mexico
“National diagnosis on internal forced displacement due to climate change and disasters in Mexico” (UNHCR report)
“Experiences and perceptions from the perspective of children and adolescents in situations of mobility in Mexico” (Plan International report and executive summary)
🇧🇷 Brazil
“Last year, more than 41,000 Cubans applied for asylum in Brazil—a record, according to the Brazilian government, and part of a broader trend in which asylum applications in the country have reached historic highs,” reports NPR, adding, “For the many Cubans reaching Brazil today, applying for asylum provides temporary legal protection and the right to work, but a final decision can take years—if it comes at all… Given concerns over political rights and Cuba’s worsening humanitarian crisis, rights groups have called on Brazil’s government to issue a broad residency permission for Cuban migrants, as it has done for Venezuelans in the past.”
A federal court suspended a “preliminary injunction that allowed migrants from eight countries (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Iraq, Mali, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela) to be exempt from presenting a passport and criminal record certificate from their country of origin for the purpose of Brazilian naturalization,” per MigraMundo. (see AMB 6/15/26 on that decision)
🇨🇱 Chile
The Kast administration has established a new protocol for “the verification of background in applications for temporary residence for family reunification of children and adolescents.” (InfoMigra)
🇺🇸 United States
“The Trump administration in recent days deported a group of Mexican nationals who had been barred from removal to their home country after proving to an immigration court that they would likely face torture,” reports New York Times.
“The United States sent a flight with deportees to Venezuela on Monday for the first time since devastating earthquakes struck the South American nation in late June,” reports New York Times; “there are still unanswered questions about the dozens of deportees believed to have died during the disaster.” (to the latter point, see also Washington Post; see last week’s AMB about related displacement)
Rulings by federal judges last week allow the Trump administration to move forward with ending TPS for Myanmar (~4,000 beneficiaries) and South Sudan (~232 beneficiaries) despite legal efforts by advocates. (Reuters)
“The federal government has chosen a small law firm that currently lacks immigration expertise to represent thousands of unaccompanied migrant children in immigration proceedings, Laura Romero of ABC News reports. The move comes after the government’s contract with nonprofit Acacia Center for Justice ran out Friday, as Ariana Figueroa of States Newsroom covers in more detail. Meanwhile, without federal repayment of nearly $1 million for work it has done, the Diocese of El Paso has ended its legal aid ministry for immigrant children, reports Gina Christian of OSV News.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily)
A paper at Migration Studies uses a conjoint survey experiment (N=1,969) to investigate “the extent to which the US public condones Border Patrol’s violent response to unauthorized border crossings. (The authors) find that the approval of violence is driven by perceived threats: respondents are more likely to support state violence when migrants attempt to cross borders in large groups, lack children in groups, or carry weapons. Contrary to expectations, race, criminal record, and migration motives do not affect preferences. Additionally, (they) find evidence of false polarization. Democrats strongly overestimate Republicans’ support for border violence, while Republicans slightly underestimate Democrats’ support.”
“President Trump signed two executive orders on Thursday aimed at limiting the number of people who are eligible for birthright citizenship and cracking down on “birth tourism,” in which women give birth in the United States to get automatic citizenship for their newborns. The new orders came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, rejected the president’s previous efforts to end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants through executive orders,” reports New York Times.
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Border Update, noting, “The 23rd person to die in ICE custody perished on August 1. Other deaths are not being reported, as ICE is releasing them while they are in medical distress. Some detained people are being force-fed when they go on hunger strikes to protest conditions.”
“This summer, the Trump administration rescinded a Biden-era policy requiring ICE to report and investigate deaths that occurred within 30 days of someone being released,” reports Mother Jones, highlighting “The Deaths ICE Doesn’t Count.”
Meanwhile, Texas Tribune reports on a case from last year in which Border Patrol shot and killed a migrant in Texas, explaining that officials are “withholding details” on the case.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
“By approving the Caribbean Community Free Movement and Contingent Rights Bill, 2026, Belize has done something Caribbean leaders have been urging for decades. It has converted the promise of free movement from an administrative arrangement into a legal right,” writes Julian Rogers at Caribbean Bridges, noting, “The legislation gives legal effect to the Protocol on Enhanced Cooperation,” with Belize currently operating in a full free movement regime with Barbados, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
“Migrants from Honduras, Cuba, and Ecuador denounced on Thursday that ICE deported them ‘by force’ to the Central African Republic without prior notice, and are seeking help to return,” reports EFE. (for more on third-country deportations to CAR, see AMB 6/15/26)
A Human Rights First report details how the Trump administration has used third country removals via “Asylum Cooperative Agreements” to “summarily dismiss more than 30,600 asylum cases since August 2025 — denying people who fled persecution and torture any chance to have their claims heard on the merits of their case.” (press release)
Through both finances and technical consulting, the US will support Guatemala to “expand and modernize Guatemala’s migration control capabilities at land and sea entry points, as well as at strategic highway checkpoints,” per a press release.
🇲🇽🇵🇪 Peru and Mexico
Peru and Mexico are set to resume diplomatic relations for the first time since late last year. (Reuters)
🇩🇴🇻🇪 Venezuela and Dominican Republic
“Venezuela and the Dominican Republic say they will work to restore ties” (Al Jazeera)
🇻🇳🇨🇦 Canada and Vietnam
“Vietnam and Saskatchewan (Canada) Sign MoU on Ethical Labor Migration” (VnEconomy)
🇺🇸 United States
“A bipartisan group of governors is launching an immigration task force to develop policy recommendations for Congress, seeking common ground at a time when deep partisan divisions have stalled immigration reform at the federal level,” reports Bloomberg.
“ICE Threatens Sheriffs With Prosecution Over Access to Inmates: In a new tactic, federal immigration officials recently started saying they would criminally charge the elected county sheriffs in Minneapolis and Chicago.” (New York Times)
“The threats… are a new salvo in the president’s campaign against state and local officials who refuse to embrace his administration’s crackdown.”
Labor Migration
🇺🇸 United States
“Senators John Curtis (R‑UT) and Mark Kelly (D‑AZ) have introduced the State-Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act (S. 5197),” notes Cato Institute, explaining the bill and arguing that the policy is “a genuinely federalist reform that lets Washington’s one-size-fits-all approach give way to 50 different answers to 50 different labor markets. This legal channel for the workers that America’s economy already demands is better than the illegal one it has settled for. Nearly a decade after Ron Johnson and John McCain first proposed this idea, Congress has another chance to let states lead where Washington has failed to.”
Borders and Enforcement
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic has deported over 704,000 migrants since the Abinader administration launched a mass deportation strategy in October 2024. The country’s migration agency, the DGM, has also “grown from 302 agents, with 235 dedicated to operational duties, to a total of 1,388 personnel, of whom 1,272 are assigned to immigration control and 116 to intelligence, investigations, internal affairs, and legal support,” per Infobae.
🇵🇪 Peru
“Peru introduces biometric foreign resident ID linked to police systems: New electronic residence card stores biometrics on a chip and connects to police databases as Peru strengthens migration controls” (Biometric Update)
“Peru’s migration authority launched the new card on July 20 with a pilot limited to foreign minors at two offices in Lima, offering 250,000 cards at the same fees as the current version. The new biometric card is linked in real time to the national police so officers can authenticate it instantly, which is a capability the existing card lacks… Authorities say the biometric, police‑connected card looks to close that gap and tackle the use of forged documents.”
“The new Carné de Extranjería upgrade was launched by the outgoing administration shortly before President Keiko Fujimori took office, leaving open the question of whether the new interior minister, César Astudillo, will maintain or accelerate the initiative.”
🇨🇱 Chile
Chilean president José Antonio Kast mentioned three initiatives related to migration when presenting a new agenda on security: “To extend the detention period for people in an irregular migratory situation. To expand expulsion capabilities. (and) To strengthen border control through ditches, drones, and permanent technological monitoring.” InfoMigra explains that each of these policies are present in bills currently under consideration in Congress.
A recently proposed bill in the Chilean Congress “seeks to criminally penalize marriages or civil unions for immigration purposes,” reports BioBioChile.
🇺🇸 United States
ICE detentions reached a record high for the second Trump administration in July at over 46,000. (CBS)
“ICE Is Trading Warehouses for Old Prisons: Adapting to public pushback, the Trump administration is pivoting to expand immigration detention bedspace nationwide.” (The Marshall Project)
“The Trump administration will require would-be immigrants from certain countries to post bonds of as much as $250,000 for visas to overcome concerns they’ll be reliant on taxpayer benefits. The new State Department visa bond program will initially cover immigrant visa applicants from the Dominican Republic,” reports Bloomberg, with UPI noting that the DR was selected as a pilot “because of the volume of immigrant visas processed by the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo.”
More on Migration
🌎 Regional
A new open-access issue of Périplos examines a variety of migration-related topics in the Americas, including case studies from the US, Ecuador, Tijuana, Belo Horizonte, Monterrey, and Santa Catarina.
🇯🇲 Jamaica
“Jamaica’s long-delayed plan to grant residency to qualifying foreign investors has moved closer to Parliament, more than four years after its formal implementation target and more than a decade after Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro) recorded the proposal,” says Observer.