Americas Migration Brief - January 26, 2026
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
“In the last five years, more than 600,000 people have returned to northern Central America, but recent trends show a shift in the profile of returnees. Now, more and more people are returning who have been living in their destination country for some time, with stronger ties there and less so in the country they emigrated from,” writes IDB’s Felipe Muñoz at El País, highlighting the importance of reintegration efforts.
“El Salvador, through its National Reintegration Plan for Returned Persons 2025-2029, has developed a process that begins with identity verification and basic assistance and continues with tailored interviews to provide entrepreneurial opportunities. Guatemala, with its Return Home Plan, combines immediate humanitarian aid with actions focused on health, education, psychosocial support, and employment opportunities, in coordination with the private sector. In Honduras, the government program Brother, Sister, Come Home has strengthened the tracking of each returnee, provides economic support to returning migrants, including access to seed capital, and implements job placement processes.”
A paper at International Migration Review “explores the emergence of mixed-status Venezuelan families in South America,” including through interviews of migrants in Chile and Colombia.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
After some uncertainty and delays (see last week’s AMB), Trinidad and Tobago’s migrant regularization program begins this week, with some decrying high costs. The application fee is 700 TTD (~104 USD) for adults, with registration permits valid until December 31, 2026. A subsequent renewal process is expected. The exact registration period for the first stage of the process is January 26 to February 25, and all migrant nationalities are eligible. (Guardian, Express, Newsday)
🇲🇽 Mexico
“A decade after the massive arrival of Haitian migrants to Tijuana, Mexico, the community that decided to settle in this border city continues to face structural barriers that hinder its full integration into society, in a context marked by job insecurity, lack of immigration regularization and persistent racial discrimination,” says EFE, noting, “According to official data and civil organizations, between 10,000 and 15,000 Haitians currently live in Baja California, many of them with children born in Mexico.”
IMUMI outlines recommendations as Mexico City works on a general plan for development; these include to “Develop guidelines and protocols for the new spaces that will be built to provide housing for people in human mobility who reside in irregular settlements. These should include specific provisions to serve historically discriminated groups.”
🇨🇦 Canada
Over 2 million temporary residents in Canada hold expired or expiring permits, reports CBC, noting more limited opportunities for permanent residency and concerns that many may look to (over)stay amid a growing population lacking regular status in the country.
Canada “has extended the deadline for eligible Ukrainians and their family members who applied under the family reunification pathway to extend their stay in Canada while awaiting a decision on their permanent residence applications,” explains Fragomen.
🇺🇸 United States
“While much attention has been paid to the impacts of the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigrants’ use of federally funded health, early education, and community services, it is far less widely understood that this move also stands to significantly destabilize the country’s adult education system. For decades, adult education programs have helped millions of immigrant adults learn English, integrate into their communities, build a range of foundational skills, and fill in-demand jobs,” explains MPI.
An MPI report “explores the rise of state and local language access policies and laws, their key features, and their role in a changing national policy context during the second Trump term.”
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇪🇨 Ecuador
University of London’s Refugee Law Initiative highlights Ecuador’s “erosion of due process” and access to asylum, as well as securitization of migration policy, with recent legal reforms. (via Forced Migration Current Awareness)
🇬🇹 Guatemala
“Funding cuts have forced NRC Guatemala to close its doors, leaving thousands of displaced people without support.” (NRC)
🇺🇸 United States
A US Border Patrol agent “shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, at about 9 a.m. Central time on Saturday morning. A video shared with The New York Times by an eyewitness and her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span of only five seconds. The footage seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the event, which the agency said began after the victim approached the federal agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them,” reports The New York Times. Pretti had a phone, not a gun, in his hand as he filmed the agents.
“Twice since the start of the year, [immigration-related] federal officers have gunned down protesters in Minneapolis with cellphone cameras rolling and twice President Trump and his lieutenants have rushed forward with a message to the American people: Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes,” writes Peter Baker at The New York Times. (see also last week’s AMB)
“An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo instructs agents and officers that they can enter a person’s home to arrest them without a judicial warrant, a move that immigration lawyers and advocates say violates the Constitution,” reports Washington Post, adding that whistleblowers “were aware of multiple DHS employees who had faced retaliation for expressing concerns about the memo and one instructor who resigned rather than teach it.”
“Several attorneys in Minnesota say the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying the constitutional right to see an attorney to many people detained in the past two weeks, report Matt Rivers, Janice McDonald and Armando Garcia of ABC News.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily)
“About 3,000 people have been arrested in Minnesota during immigration enforcement operations. Christopher Magan and Jeff Hargarten of The Minnesota Star Tribune investigate the veracity of the federal government’s claims about those arrested.” (via The Forum Daily)
US immigration authorities are making a list of anti-ICE protestors and those that film immigration agents, claiming that they are “domestic terrorists.” (Ken Klippenstein)
“Let’s talk plainly. To call these “immigration operations” at this point is a misnomer. There’s no doubt that immigrants are being detained, but that seems at least partially incidental to the twin missions of ethnic strife and disempowerment—related but crucially not identical to immigration enforcement, as the efforts to terrorize a large population of Somali Americans in Minneapolis demonstrates. On top of that, there is the performative trampling of local control and the denial of fundamental civil liberties,” says Felipe De La Hoz at The Baffler.
More US citizens now support abolishing ICE than oppose such a policy, reports Forbes, citing an Economist/YouGov poll. In addition, 47% of party independents support abolishing ICE, in comparison to 35% opposing.
Meanwhile, seven Democrats in the House voted in favor of a spending bill to maintain ICE funding, reports Newsweek. The bill now goes to the Senate. (see also Migrant Insider)
“UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called on the United States to ensure that its migration policies and enforcement practices respect human dignity and due process rights, decrying the dehumanising portrayal and harmful treatment of migrants and refugees.” (UN Human Rights Office)
“In light of harsh repression in Iran, the US should grant Temporary Protected Status to Iranians already here” (Niskanen Center)
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “Three detained migrants died in a space of 44 days at a tent facility at Fort Bliss, an El Paso military base, that is currently the United States’ largest migrant detention facility. An autopsy report found that the second of those deaths was a homicide. Thirty people in 2025, and six more so far in 2026, have died in an ICE detention system that has seen vastly reduced oversight and a several-month cutoff in payments to medical providers.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“A Federal Court judge has rejected the Canadian government’s attempt to throw out a challenge by advocacy groups seeking greater transparency on how Ottawa decides to designate the United States as a safe country for refugees,” reports The Star, adding, “If the challenge is successful, it would be the first time an exemption would be granted for lawyers and parties to access secret information protected by cabinet confidentiality for the federal cabinet.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎Regional
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explores how regional free movement regimes and cooperation in the Caribbean “offer unique potential to address the human mobility challenges posed by the climate crisis,” looking at the case of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
CNW highlights the exclusion of Haitians for multiple migration-related agreements including CARICOM nations. (see, for example, last week’s AMB)
🌎🇨🇱 Chile and Regional
Chilean president-elect José Antonio Kast visited the Dominican Republic to discuss migration, among other issues, announcing that he would take the country’s migration policy and mass deportation agenda as a point of reference for his own migration policy. (La Tercera, Acento)
Dominican migration policy has been criticized for racist profiling and human rights abuses. (see, for example, AMB 12/15/25)
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
US deportees sent to Ghana as a “Safe Third Country” are subsequently being deported by Ghana to their countries of origin, reports Reuters, noting, “at least 22 were sent by Ghana to their home countries despite having obtained court-ordered protection in the U.S. meant to prevent this from happening… The lawyers said Ghana’s repatriations appeared systematic and that none of their clients had opportunities to raise legal objections before being sent home.”
“Reuters also found that Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich Central African country, sent home at least three U.S. deportees who had protection against this in the United States, according to interviews with one of the migrants and two lawyers. These repatriations have not previously been reported.”
“Venezuela’s interim government, in another sign of its willingness to placate the Trump administration, is receiving more deportation flights in the aftermath of the U.S. capture of President Nicolás Maduro, according to U.S. officials. Last year, Venezuela allowed as many as two flights per week, a number that is now expected to rise to three,” reports New York Times.
🇬🇹🇧🇿 Belize and Guatemala
“(Belizean) Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa has highlighted the success of border crossing cards currently issued to Guatemalan students from Petén, describing the system as an effective tool that eases early-morning crossings for students attending school in Belize’s Cayo District,” reports LoveFM, adding, “Musa noted that based on the success of the student cards, government is hopeful that a similar arrangement can be developed for Belizeans who cross into Melchor de Mencos, particularly those who do so regularly for personal or economic reasons.”
Labor Migration
🇯🇲 Jamaica
IOM ran a pilot program in Jamaica to conduct workshops with skills training and livelihood improvements for the partners of Jamaican labor migrants that have gone abroad. The workshop incorporated a specific gender lens; “Women whose spouses participate in circular migration programmes such as the Farm Work Programme, are often left behind when their partners leave to work abroad.”
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
A bulletin by the Dominican Republic’s National Migration Institute (INM) explores migrant labor in the country’s construction sector, labor migration governance, and high-skilled migration.
🇨🇦 Canada
“Canada adds 5,000 PR selection spaces for French-speaking immigrants” (CIC News)
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
“Between January 1 and 18, 577 irregular migrants arrived in Panama, traveling back to South America after their plans to settle in the United States were thwarted,” says EFE, noting that almost all were of Venezuelan nationality.
Borders and Enforcement
🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
“Deputy Governor of the Cayman Islands Franz Manderson says the Government is gearing up for a potential surge in migrants from Cuba amid the possibility of further economic deterioration in the Spanish-speaking country,” reports Gleaner. So far, no recent arrivals have been documented. (see also CNW)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“Dominican migration expands operations in the northeast of the country” (Prensa Latina)
🇨🇦 Canada
“The number of asylum claims made in Canada dropped by one-third last year, after scrutiny of visitor visa applications increased and entry requirements for Mexicans tightened,” reports The Globe and Mail, explaining, “Canada said it had scrutinized more closely applications from foreign nationals applying for visitor visas to come to Canada. This led to a 55-per-cent drop in asylum claims from such visa holders in November compared with the same month the year before.”
🇺🇸 United States
“(Trump) has repatriated more than 1,600 Cubans in 2025, according to the Cuban government. That is about double the number of Cubans who were repatriated in 2024. And in the years that Mr. Trump has been president, he has sent more Cubans back than his three predecessors,” reports The New York Times.
“Global Inequalities in US Visa Rejections: Evidence from Visitor Visa Applications Submitted Between 2006 and 2021” (International Migration Review; via Forced Migration Current Awareness)
🇧🇷 Brazil
In a move of visa policy reciprocity, Brazil has announced an exemption from visa restrictions for China. (Agência Brasil)