Americas Migration Brief - August 11, 2025
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇵🇦 Panama
Migrants and asylum seekers from across the globe deported by the US to Panama earlier this year are faced with precarity in the Central American country—179 of the original 299 returned home through an “assisted voluntary return” program, but of those that remain, “They were initially granted 30-day permits, with their stays extended various times at the last minute. They are now allowed to remain until December, but are not permitted to work,” reports The Guardian. One of the group said “she feels the deportees have ‘been forgotten by the world.’”
🇦🇼 Aruba
Aruba is introducing new methods to legalize status and issue work permits for irregular migrants in the country, reports Crónicas del Caribe, noting that the initiative looks to fill labor gaps and ensure the sustainability of social security and tax obligations. Irregular migrants present on the island before July 1, 2025 will be able to apply for a temporary work permit: “There are requirements that must be met, just as with previous permits. The only difference is that the individual will not be required to leave Aruba while awaiting a response to their application, nor will the permit be denied due to overstaying their legal stay on the island.”
🇨🇼 Curaçao
“An estimated 15,000 undocumented people live in Curaçao, although international agencies believe the real number is higher. According to UNHCR, the island has the highest number of migrants per capita in the world… Lacking legal status, they have no access to health insurance or social services,” reports Crónicas del Caribe, highlighting one NGO’s efforts to provide healthcare services to the island’s mostly Venezuelan migrants.
🇧🇷 Brazil
MigraMundo reviews the right to family reunification in Brazil, noting that in addition to a robust legislative framework, a recent Supreme Court decision that “unanimously authorized the entry of a Haitian teenager into Brazil without a visa, ensuring her reunion with her parents, who are legal residents in the country.”
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
A Crisis Group report explores illegal mining and violence in southern Venezuela and Colombia, where migrants are often the victims of violence; similarly, InfoAmazonia looks at gold mining, migration, and violence at the Brasil-Colombia-Venezuela border region.
Observer highlights the scourge of human trafficking and sexual violence across the Caribbean, with Venezuelan and Haitian migrant women often the victims. “It is a US$40-billion industry in the Caribbean,” according to researcher Dr Cleophas Justine Pierre.
🇭🇳 Honduras
A Save the Children and UNHCR study explores violence-induced displacement among teachers and the education system in Honduras.
🇬🇹 Guatemala
An American University policy brief based on a 2023 survey examines the relationship between climate change and migration in Guatemala, finding “a stronger relationship between a respondent’s sense of climate vulnerability and their propensity to consider migrating when compared to their sense of economic hardship or poor government response to climate-related extreme weather.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
Migrants being deported by the US are increasingly sent to southern Mexico where they face rising insecurity in the region, according to a dispatch from WOLA and the Women’s Refugee Commission. They add, “The U.S. aid cuts have already drastically reduced support for migrants—and they leave the region unprepared for a surge in U.S. deportations.” (see also their dispatches from Guatemala and Honduras in last week’s AMB)
🇺🇸 United States
“Officials have begun separating children from their families in small numbers across the country, in what appears to be a more targeted version of one of the most explosive policies of President Trump’s first term,” reports The New York Times, uncovering “at least nine cases in which parents have been separated from their children after they refused to comply with deportation orders.”
“Illegal profiling accounts for a substantial portion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in 2025. While ICE has other tactics to arrest peaceful immigrants—such as during immigration hearings, appointments, and check-ins—ICE agents are deliberately targeting workers in heavily Latino jobs and neighborhoods,” says Cato’s David Bier on Substack, investigating the data.
The Trump administration is reviving long-since-closed immigration cases, reports LA Times, adding, “Some lawyers say the administration is deliberately seeking to overwhelm the courts, making it harder for immigrants to oppose deportation proceedings. ‘People aren’t getting due process,’ one said.”
“Hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in immigrant detention, report finds: The office of Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff asserts it “identified 510 credible reports of human rights abuse” against immigration detainees. DHS disputed the claims.” (NBC)
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “Following their July 18 release after four months’ captivity in El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, some of the 252 Venezuelan migrants whom the U.S. government sent there have given harrowing testimonies of the systematic abuse, torture, and inhumane conditions they suffered.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“Advocates fear Haitian nationals intercepted in Quebec could face deportation if they are returned to U.S.” (The Globe and Mail)
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
Over the next year, the Central American and Caribbean Judicial Council (CJCC) will look to develop “standardized norms in the judiciaries of Central America and the Caribbean, for the effective care and access to justice of migrant and refugee populations,” per a press release.
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
37% of migrants deported by the Trump administration to a third country (not their country of origin) have been Venezuelan, with an additional 20% from Guatemala, 8% from Honduras, and 6% from Cuba, reports Miami Herald.
El País examines third country deportations to Africa, “far from the scrutiny of the press and human rights defenders.”
Reuters notes that Rwanda has agreed to accept up to 250 migrants deported from the US in an exchange for an undisclosed grant payment, with 10 individuals already under consideration. Per a Rwandan official, “Under the agreement, Rwanda has the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement. Those approved will be provided with workforce training, healthcare, and accommodation support to jumpstart their lives in Rwanda, giving them the opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the last decade.” Deportees arriving in Rwanda “do not have to stay in the country and can leave anytime they choose.”
A Refugees International statement “condemns the recent agreement that will provide U.S. State Department money to finance the deportation of migrants transiting through Costa Rica.” (see last week’s AMB)
“Instead of financing deportation agreements, the U.S. should use that money to support the Costa Rican asylum system, which is facing a 77 percent reduction in its capacity to register newly arrived asylum seekers,” says RI’s Rachel Schmidtke.
“While the United States seeks to prevent more migration from Venezuela, the strain of hosting 2.8 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees is putting Colombia on the back foot in its fight against transnational criminal groups. Bilateral efforts to improve security cooperation, reduce irregular migration sustainably, and improve opportunities for Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Colombia can benefit both countries,” according to an Atlantic Council policy brief.
Americas Quarterly examines the prospects of Argentina joining the US Visa Waiver Program. (see last week’s AMB)
Labor Migration
🇺🇸 United States
“President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will release new rules and regulations on migrant farm labor,” reports Politico. Details remain unclear.
Migrants in Transit
🇲🇽 Mexico
Whereas most migrant caravans heading north in Mexico have traditionally looked to arrive at the US-Mexico border, a group of around 300 migrants previously stuck in Tapachula have their sights set on central Mexico, hoping to regularize their status or seek asylum. (AP)
But one of the caravan’s organizers, pro-immigrant activist Luis Rey Villagrán, has been detained by Mexican authorities for “human trafficking and drug distribution,” reports EFE, noting that advocates expressed concern about his arrest and “a pattern of criminalization against those who defend and support migrants.”
A BBVA annual report examines Mexican migration and remittances.
🇳🇮 Nicaragua
“Since 2019, the Cuban community in Nicaragua has been steadily increasing, and according to testimonies from migrants, the flow could rise in the coming years, driven by the visa exemption that has been in effect since 2021 and the lack of opportunities on the island,” says CiberCuba.
Borders and Enforcement
🇨🇼 Curaçao
“The Joint Court of Justice has ruled that merely entering Curaçao illegally does not constitute a valid legal basis for detaining a person in immigration detention,” reports Crónicas del Caribe, noting, “The minister is required to evaluate less restrictive alternatives unless there is a demonstrable risk of escape or public disorder.”
🇺🇸 United States
The New Yorker examines the tensions within the Trump administration surrounding deportation numbers, adding, “Congress has already approved a budget that will triple the funding for ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations, promising an even more expansive enforcement arm, an extended network of private detention centers, and deeper confrontations with foreign-born people and their communities in the U.S. ICE seems unlikely to slow down. At the same time, resistance is growing and the politics are shifting.”
On a similar note: “DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day: It’s another discrepancy between what White House advisers say and the administration’s legal posture.” (Politico)
“On Tuesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in an internal email that it would offer cash bonuses to agents for deporting people quickly… Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program,” reports The New York Times.
“The Trump administration’s plan to install large-scale detention facilities on U.S. military bases is taking shape, with Fort Bliss preparing to detain at least 1,000 undocumented immigrants starting this month,” reports Washington Post.
The Border Chronicle highlights the establishment of “National Defense Areas” along the US-Mexico border, noting, “In July, the Pentagon confirmed that at least 8,500 military personnel are now guarding these military zones, along with 4,200 National Guard members working under the Texas-led border security mission Operation Lonestar.”
“Republican governors in Idaho, Virginia and Nevada are moving to mobilize National Guard troops to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” reports Migrant Insider.
More on Migration
🇺🇸 United States
“The State Department will impose bonds as high as $15,000 for tourism and business traveler visas issued to visitors from countries with significant overstay rates,” reports Bloomberg.