Americas Migration Brief - July 1, 2024
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
An MPI report “maps the legal pathways that exist in the hemisphere at present, including those created by regional mobility and residence agreements, visa and circular labor migration policies, and humanitarian protection measures.”
El Español highlights the importance of education for the region’s migrant youth, arguing that governments should “Eliminate legal or administrative barriers that prevent or hinder the access and continuity of mobile students in the educational system… Address the structural dimensions so that schools have the necessary resources to provide quality education to the migrant population and the host community… (and) Work on the various forms of discrimination, xenophobia and/or racism that abound against migrant girls, boys and adolescents and their families.”
An IOM report outlines a model policy to support reintegration of migrant returnees.
An IOM report explores access to social security for migrants across the region.
🇪🇨 Ecuador
“Ecuador will implement an extraordinary regularization process for Venezuelan citizens… preliminarily, it is planned to start in the last four months of 2024,” reports El Universo, explaining that the process will be “aimed only at Venezuelan citizens who have obtained a Certificate of Immigration Permanence (CPM), issued by the Ministry of the Interior during the last regularization process.”
Venezuelan migrants in the country have called for a new regularization given that the visa from the previous process is set to begin expiring in September 2024, notes El Pitazo.
🇨🇴 Colombia
A UNHCR and IPA policy brief assesses the labor-based PEPFF regularization program for Venezuelans in Colombia that ran from 2020 to 2021, finding that the program “supported short-term employment-related outcomes and helped mitigate occupational downgrading,” as well as improving wages and working conditions. However, impact in the medium-term was more limited, and “Just 34% of PEPFF programme participants were women, highlighting a clear need for targeted support,” per a related blog post.
Colombia’s new PEP-Tutor regularization program “raises questions and presents limitations,” according to an El País op-ed assessing the program’s strengths and weaknesses and highlighting the financial costs to access it—Colombia’s 2021 PPT regularization program was free, by contrast. (see last week’s AMB)
Fintech company AAvance launched a new physical Visa debit card for its more than 5,000 clients, the vast majority of which are Venezuelan migrants. The business supports their financial inclusion, reports La República.
🇨🇱 Chile
According to an analysis of the migrants that took part in Chile’s recent registration process, 47% earn between $500 and $800 per month. Just 34% work formally with a signed contract. (Rostros Venezolanos)
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
“As the country gets ready for the first intake of migrant children into schools in September, the Caribbean Kids and Families Therapy Organisation (CKFTO) has been training 140 teachers on how to identify and assist those children who have developmental delays or suffering from trauma,” reports Guardian.
🇧🇷 Brazil
Brazil’s Federal District approved the creation of a District Policy for the Immigrant Population. (Metrópoles)
🇭🇳 Honduras
“Honduras launches the national reintegration plan to assist those returning to the country” (El Heraldo)
🇵🇪 Peru
A Tent guide to hiring migrant workers in Peru characterizes the Venezuelan migrant population in the country and explains the legal frameworks surrounding foreign labor in Peru.
🇺🇸 United States
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in a new report that current levels of immigration will have a positive impact on economic growth, the workforce, federal revenues, and budget deficits in the next decade, reports Courtenay Brown of Axios. The benefit to GDP could be almost $9 trillion, with deficit decreases of nearly $1 trillion and federal revenues up $1.2 trillion, explains National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily.
“The Supreme Court ruled Friday that U.S. citizens don’t have a fundamental right to have their noncitizen spouses admitted to the U.S.,” reports Wall Street Journal.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
Extreme heat is a danger to migrants in transit across the Americas: “In the Mexican desert near the US border, security forces are on alert after a man was found dead from heat stroke on the journey to what he hoped would be a better life in North America,” reports Barron’s.
Just Security highlights a call for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to establish protections for people displaced by climate change. Chile and Colombia recently requested an advisory opinion on the question of “What obligations and principles should guide the individual and coordinated measures that the States of the region should adopt to deal with involuntary human mobility exacerbated by the climate emergency?”
An IMUMI fact sheet highlights concerns surrounding US removals and returns of non-Mexican nationals to Mexico, reporting that “The United States has deported nonMexican individuals to Mexico without first returning their passports and identification cards, stranding these individuals in a foreign country with no identity or nationality documents,” and that “Mexican officials immediately take non-Mexican returnees or deportees into custody and transport them by bus or plane to southern Mexico without consent.”
An Encuentros SJM journal explores refugee and protection issues in Latin America, highlighting the opportunity of the Cartagena+40 process and the importance of bolstering the capacity of national refugee offices, among other issues.
Strengthening capacity of Costa Rica’s Refugee Unit was a key recommendation in a recent CEDA policy brief I collaborated on. (see AMB 6/17/24)
🇨🇺 Cuba
“A new Migration Law project opens the door for the Cuban Government to strip citizenship from those who dissent from the system, following the model of countries like Nicaragua,” says El País. (see last week’s AMB)
“Cuba’s proposed new immigration laws aim to update the regulations for Cubans living abroad but stop short of fully addressing the rights related to property ownership,” according to CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.
🇺🇸 United States
The Biden administration has extended and redesignated Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), with an estimated 309,000 additional Haitian nationals to benefit from the redesignation. (press release)
The Biden administration has extended Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians who have “been continuously physically present in the United States since May 20, 2017,” with the provision including employment authorization. (memorandum)
“A new report by the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, and the nonprofit watchdog American Oversight reveals how “systemic failures in medical and mental health care in ICE detention have caused otherwise preventable deaths.” … Medical experts consulted for the analysis concluded that 95 percent of the deaths in custody, or 49 of the 52 incidents reported by ICE from January 2017 to December 2021, were preventable, or possibly preventable, had the detainee received adequate medical care,” reports Mother Jones.
The Biden administration’s recent moves to limit access to asylum have most affected Mexicans and other nationalities that Mexico has agreed to take, notes AP.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
Mexico held a high-level hemispheric meeting focused on labor migration pathways last week, with “over 175 delegates from 30 countries.” IOM called for an expansion of regular labor migration pathways in the Americas at the meeting, per a press release.
In a meeting of the Trifinio Plan between El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the three countries discussed issues related to migration and human trafficking. (AGN)
🇪🇨🇨🇷 Costa Rica and Ecuador
Costa Rica and Ecuador signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on the issues of migrant smuggling and trafficking. (Primicias, El Telégrafo)
🇵🇦🇨🇷 Costa Rica and Panama
The Costa Rican and Panamanian ministers of foreign affairs met to discuss migration, among other topics. (TVN, República)
🇲🇽🇺🇸 United States and Mexico
A Wilson Center report explores cooperation between the US and Mexico on migration from Northern Central America and recommendations for joint efforts to address the root causes of migration.
Labor Migration
🌎 Regional
I wrote a special edition of the AMB last week about brain drain in the Caribbean, focusing on the challenge of teacher and healthcare worker emigration. I propose three potential opportunities to help:
Developing Global Skills Partnerships focused on teaching and health care with common countries of destination such as Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US
Introducing teaching abroad fellowship programs to recruit early career professionals from outside the region
Expanding pathways for migration of healthcare professionals, including through travel work programs
🇧🇿 Belize
“Аddrеѕѕіng thе соnѕtаnt аnd сhrоnіс ѕhоrtаgе оf lаbоur еѕресіаllу іn аgrісulturаl іnduѕtrіеѕ, thе Ехесutіvе hаѕ аррrоvеd thе рlаnnіng оf а full-tіmе Ѕеаѕоnаl Міgrаnt Wоrkеrѕ Рrоgrаm,” reports BBN.
🇨🇦 Canada
“A group of migrant agricultural workers employed in Abbotsford, B.C. have become the first in Canada to unionize in nearly two decades.” (National Observer)
🇺🇸 United States
“The U.S. Conference of Mayors… called on federal lawmakers to establish a "heartland visa" that would bring high-skilled immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs to communities facing population and economic decline,” reports Reason.
“Last week, Trump said international students who graduate from American colleges should get green cards "automatically," but his campaign has since walked that back, reports Michael Lee of Fox News. In Forbes, Stuart Anderson argues why the former president was unlikely to implement such a policy, given Trump’s record on international students and professional immigrant workers. And Catherine Rampell of The Washington Post puts a finer point on it,” notes National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily.
“Maya Goldman of Axios takes another look at how the State Department’s halt in visa processing is limiting the arrival of international nurses, adding to an already critical shortage. "We can't bring in people fast enough to fill the hole that we already have," said Megan Cundari, senior director of federal relations at the American Hospital Association. A wide coalition of health care advocates are pushing a bipartisan bill that would help address this shortage by reclaiming unused green cards to offer more employment-based visas for nurses.” (The Forum Daily)
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
KQED highlights West African migration through the Americas to the US, often via Nicaragua, while Proceso similarly looks at migration through Nicaragua and Central America, with a spotlight on migration from Tajikistan and transit migration through Honduras.
Borders and Enforcement
🇺🇸 United States
The Biden administration is on pace to match the Trump administration’s deportation numbers, but the type of deportations are different, explains MPI. As opposed to deportations from the interior of the country, “A defining trend of the Biden administration is that, for the first time since the early years of the Obama administration, most deportations have been returns, which require migrants to acknowledge they arrived in the United States unlawfully but allow them to voluntarily depart without receiving a formal removal order.”
“The Supreme Court made an about-face on June 14, holding that immigration judges may order noncitizens deported if they do not appear for their immigration hearings even if the government never provided them with a Notice to Appear (NTA) with the date and time of their immigration hearing,” explains Immigration Impact, arguing, “It is critical to protect the due process rights of noncitizens in removal proceedings because the stakes are so high. By allowing the government to cut corners when giving notice to people facing deportation, the Campos-Chavez decision undermines those rights.”
🇵🇪 Peru
“Peru will extend the visa and passport requirement to all Venezuelans who want to enter its territory starting July 2, after lifting an exception that allowed entry only with an identity card in certain cases for humanitarian reasons,” reports AP. “There are exceptions regarding the entry of Venezuelan citizens when the cases are extremely vulnerable. They are treated by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR) who will support the migrant to make a request for refuge,” notes Rostros Venezolanos. (see also Infobae)
More on Migration
🇺🇸 United States
Real Instituto Elcano explores the Biden administration’s migration record, from border policies to regional cooperation to domestic politics and more.
National Immigration Forum breaks down eight immigration-related positions Biden and Trump “have taken during their tenure as President and their general election campaigns,” comparing and contrasting the two.