Americas Migration Brief - June 1, 2026
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
A Centro de Políticas Migratorias journal covers a wide range of topics related to immigration in the Americas, including an interview with MPI’s Andrew Selee on regional dynamics, a feature highlighting the case of Ecuador, and trends in Chilean public opinion. In Ecuador, “Nine out of ten returnees from Spain and half of those returning from the United States want to emigrate again, which calls into question the sustainability of any reintegration program.”
A UNDP report on democracy and development in Latin America and the Caribbean includes a chapter on migration and internal displacement in the region.
🇦🇷 Argentina
Fewer migrants are applying to transition from temporary to permanent residency following the Milei government’s moves to increase requirements for the latter status, per Página 12.
🇨🇱 Chile
The Association of Banks (ABIF) and Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) have “sealed an unprecedented agreement that seeks to promote the financial inclusion of regular migrants in Chile through training, education and the generation of applied evidence,” reports La Tercera.
InfoMigra outlines 23 proposals “in relation to digital rights, access to information and participation and inclusion, in favor of safe, orderly and regular migration, which responds to the needs of immigrant and emigrant communities, as well as to the governance of the Chilean State.”
🇨🇴 Colombia
A Dejusticia study explores the experiences of migrant women working in Bogotá, “revealing how migration trajectories make the care work historically performed by women more precarious. Furthermore, barriers to obtaining legal immigration status, unequal gender and labor arrangements—both in societies of origin and destination—and a lack of access to services, rights, and care networks trap women in cycles of poverty, with profound impacts on their well-being, autonomy, and health.”
🇺🇸 United States
“The Department of Homeland Security sought on Friday to clarify its announcement last week that immigrants seeking permanent residency would have to return to their home countries to await their green cards, claiming there was no major change in policy and that only some will have to go back…it would be up to individual immigration officers to decide whether someone should be forced to go abroad to gain a green card. They said that officers have long had such discretion,” reports New York Times.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇭🇹 Haiti
DGPC and IOM’s most recent DTM estimates 1,466,862 total IDPs in Haiti, including an increase in internal displacement in Port-au-Prince. (see also last week’s AMB on internal displacement regionally)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“The Dominican Republic’s anti-immigration crackdown includes stationing officers in hospitals, where Haitian women who give birth, along with their newborns, are caught in the deportation dragnet. The situation has pushed many of them to give birth in squalid conditions without medical supervision, where they face life-threatening risks, reports the New York Times.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)
🇨🇱 Chile
A Venezuelan migrant attempting to leave Chile through an irregular crossing in the desert died last week, reports La Patria. As noted in AMB 4/27/26, irregular migrants must pay for fines and a permit for legal departure in order to exit the country through formal (safer) channels—approximately 32,897 migrants exited Chile between 2022 and 2025 with official exit authorization, per InfoMigra.
🇧🇷 Brazil
A technical note by IOM and Fundação Grupo Boticário examines the relationship between climate change and displacement in Brazil, “presents pathways for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), an approach internationally recognized for strengthening urban resilience and reducing socio-environmental vulnerabilities… According to data from the AdaptaBrasil platform published in 2024, 66% of Brazilian municipalities have low or very low adaptive capacity in the face of extreme weather events.”
MigraMundo highlights the issue of statelessness and efforts to address this in Brazil (and globally).
🇲🇽 Mexico
“In Tapachula, between 20,000 and 50,000 people remain waiting, according to estimates from local NGOs. In consultations, MSF teams have heard recurring stories: Women, men, and children who have fled violence only to encounter new forms of vulnerability and violence in Mexico. The impacts are not only physical; mental health consequences are also present. Many people have chronic illnesses that have gone months without treatment. People are living in overcrowded conditions, often without reliable access to food or safe drinking water, while many children remain out of school and struggle to survive on the streets,” says Doctors Without Borders.
🇺🇸 United States
“Taking on what it describes as a “de facto amnesty” program, the Trump administration has sought to all but eliminate the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for noncitizens in the United States whose homelands have experienced natural or man-made disaster. Since returning to office, the administration has sought to end protections for nearly all TPS recipients, including those from troubled Haiti and Venezuela. There were nearly 1.3 million TPS holders in the United States as of March 2025, but that number could drop to zero by the end of November,” explains MPI, reviewing the status of TPS for several countries. The second Trump administration has attempted to end 13 of 17 country designations, only sparing El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan, and Ukraine.
In the first such case of his second term, the Trump administration extended TPS for Lebanon for 6 months, reports Newsweek.
“ICE detainees are dying by suicide at an ‘alarming’ rate, an AP investigation finds” (AP)
“‘It’s hell’: migrant women suffer constant abuse in ICE centers. Reports of neglect and abuse of pregnant women at detention centers are piling up and reaching Congress” (El País)
“Lawyers say a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old have been detained at Washington Dulles International Airport for more than a week, Daniel Wu of The Washington Post reports. With a tourist visa, the two came from Ghana seeking medical treatment.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily)
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Border Update, noting, “April saw more migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border than any other month of the Trump administration so far. The increase is almost certainly seasonal. Reports from around the border indicate more people are crossing and trying to evade capture. Still, migration remains near 60-year lows amid the ongoing suspension of asylum access and “mass deportation” campaign.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎Regional
The adoption of full free movement among Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines last year “has not triggered mass migration waves,” reports Observer, highlighting comments from a recent CARICOM border summit. In multiple cases, the new regime has been used to help regularize the status of migrants already residing in a given country.
Meanwhile, “Citizens of Barbados and Guyana will soon be able to travel between the two countries using only national identification cards under a landmark bilateral agreement aimed at deepening Caribbean integration,” reports CNW.
The Barbados-Guyana agreement highlights the lack of progress on free movement and integration from Jamaica, according to Gleaner: “Last October, when the full free movement quartet – using an amendment to the CARICOM treaty that allows a critical mass of members to proceed on an agreed action while others catch up- launched their agreement, Jamaica restated its commitment to the idea of labour moving freely in the community. But it gave no timeframe for following suit.”
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
On third country deportations by the US:
Following controversy over the deportation of a Belizean national to St. Kitts and Nevis by the Trump administration (see last week’s AMB), Belizean officials “indicated that the Belizean national had the option of returning to Belize, but said the decision on where he ultimately landed was his personal choice,” per LoveFM.
“A new Human Rights Watch report documents how Cubans deported from the US to Mexico are being left in highly precarious conditions. The report estimates that 4,353 Cubans were deported to Mexico between January 2025 and March 2026, many of whom were left without legal status, stable housing, employment, or access to humanitarian support. Human Rights Watch documented cases involving elderly deportees, families with children, and individuals stranded in dangerous conditions with limited resources and no clear pathway forward,” explains CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.
The U.S. policy of deporting people to third countries, often conflict zones or authoritarian governed, must stop, write James A Goldston and Natasha Arnpriester in the Guardian. “No country can guarantee safety if it lacks functioning asylum laws, honest courts, impartial officials and the will to protect people from detention, coercion, disappearance or onward removal. States that facilitate these transfers are violating their own laws and international law.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)
Labor Migration
🇺🇸 United States
“States know their labor markets, and they should be able to harness the benefits of immigration to support their economic growth. They oversee occupational licensing, labor and employment protections, and unemployment benefits. Congress should recognize this need by creating a State-Designated Critical Skills Visa, giving states the ability to identify and address critical workforce needs,” proposes Betsy Fisher at Securing America’s Promise.
“Under this program, states that opt in would provide temporary status for workers offered a job in an occupation they have designated as critical. For example, Washington might focus on agricultural workers for berry farms, while Tennessee might prioritize nursing home caregivers. The visa could cover a wide range of jobs, as long as employers provide safe working conditions and fair wages that protect existing workers.”
“The State-Designated Critical Skills Visa should include serious worker protections. Unlike the current visa system, where immigrant workers are dependent on one employer, increasing the likelihood of abuse, this visa should allow workers to change employers. Visa applications should also include fees to cover compliance inspections that ensure safe and fair working conditions. Fees should also support training for U.S. workers.”
Considering demographic realities, “Absent immigration, a smaller workforce will be funding entitlements and benefits for a growing number of retirees, leading to lower growth, higher taxes, rising costs, and fewer public services. Given that outlook, the country urgently needs to determine how to put immigration policy onto firm footing with common-sense visa policies that enable orderly immigration aimed at sustaining economic dynamism,” explains MPI, outlining a reform agenda that includes to “Attract and facilitate immigration for key talent… Identify priority sectors where foreign-born workers can best contribute… Establish flexibility… Allow employers to sponsor reliable workers who are already in the United States… [and] Build employment-based immigration processing machinery that is efficient and workable for employers and immigrants alike.”
“A Trump administration plan to overhaul wage levels for visa holders is jolting hospitals and long-term care facilities that are heavily reliant on foreign-born workers,” reports Axios, explaining, “The Department of Labor wants to change the formula for calculating what it considers “fair minimum pay” for workers on certain visas, like H-1Bs, and green card sponsorship jobs.” Axios notes, “There’s special concern about rural health providers that rely heavily on foreign-born clinicians to fill gaps in care in underserved areas.” (see also last week’s AMB)
Migrants in Transit
🌎Regional
“In previous periods of political and economic crisis, most Cuban migrants went to the United States. But a growing share is now heading to Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico. These destination countries bear the downstream costs of U.S. policy toward Cuba, giving them leverage that could shape their responses to Washington’s future actions in the hemisphere,” write Gil Guerra and Diana Roy at Foreign Policy.
Borders and Enforcement
🇬🇹 Guatemala
An investigation by Guatemalan authorities reveals a “gota a gota” loan shark scam in Colombia linked to irregular migration to Guatemala in collaboration with officials from the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM). (Prensa Libre)
🇦🇼 Aruba
The Netherlands Caribbean Coast Guard arrested two Venezuelan sailors for migrant smuggling off the coast of Aruba. “Several passengers admitted to paying at least $300 for the transfer from Venezuelan territory. Some even revealed that they had agreed to pay the ship’s captain another $200 once the journey was over,” reports Crónicas del Caribe.
🇺🇸 United States
Former DHS official Theresa Cardinal Brown considers at her Substack “A Principled and Practical Approach to Interior Immigration Enforcement”—imagining what interior immigration enforcement looks like in a context in which there are no undocumented immigrants (either because of regularization or deportation) and “the question then becomes: What should happen to the next person in the U.S. who violates immigration law in some way?” Policy recommendations include to “Clarify and Codify Enforcement Priorities… Promote Fairness to Encourage Compliance… Ensure Enforcement Respects the Constitution… [and] Strengthen Congressional Oversight.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“Canada to drop visa requirement for citizens of Indonesia and Malaysia” (CIC News)
Due to ebola risks, Canada is temporarily suspending immigration documents for residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, per CIC News.
More on Migration
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Remittances to Mexico fell roughly 4.6 percent in 2025 due to a combination of factors related to demographic changes and migration enforcement. Other contributors to the change include small increases in the principal amount remitted, a reduction in transfers from non-Mexicans, and the use of other money transfer methods,” explains Inter-American Dialogue.