Americas Migration Brief - June 17, 2024
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Se puede acceder aquí a una versión en español del boletín traducida por inteligencia artificial.
Consulte aqui uma versão em português do boletim traduzida por inteligência artificial.
I collaborated with CEDA on their new policy brief: Costa Rica: Access to Protection. Here are some key findings:
Costa Rica’s Refugee Unit faces large, growing backlogs and lacks capacity to respond to those seeking asylum—there were over 190,000 unresolved applications as of November 2023, mainly from Nicaraguans. The unit is additionally highly dependent on UNHCR and international aid, highlighted by a recent Comptroller General's Office report that noted barriers in access to asylum, among other findings.
Costa Rica has used special categories to provide complementary protection and temporarily regularize some migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. However, the most recent program stopped accepting new applications on February 29, 2024, leaving migrants in Costa Rica without any formalized protection pathways to stay in the country outside of the beleaguered asylum system.
Recommendations are explained in detail within the brief, including:
For the government of Costa Rica to:
Enhance access to and strengthen the functioning of its asylum system
Renew and expand the Temporary Special Category regularization program, and reduce barriers to its access
And for the international community to:
Fully fund UNHCR’s 2024 financial requirements for Costa Rica
Finance and bolster the capacity of Costa Rica’s General Directorate of Migration and Foreign Nationals
Note: a translation in Spanish should be published in the coming days at CEDA’s webpage.
Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
Costa Rica has reversed a 2022 decision that restricted access to refugee status and work permits, reports Confidencial, noting “There will no longer be a one-month period to submit the refugee application and applicants will once again obtain a work permit when making their request.” (see also the decree and OndaLocal)
🇬🇾 Guyana
A UNHCR survey focused on Venezuelans in Guyana found that “14% did not have documentation or legal status in Guyana” and that “60% of non-citizens have an irregular/expired migratory status.” Housing was identified as a principle challenge, as “ 9% have been previously evicted in Guyana, and 10% have been threatened with eviction.” In terms of education, “26% between 5 and 24 years of age have never attended school.”
🇨🇴 Colombia
Bancolombia’s digital wallet, Nequi, has opened up access to “some of its financial services to Venezuelan migrants with a Temporary Protection Permit (PPT),” reports El Pitazo, noting that “only about 794,029 Venezuelans had any financial product in Colombia as of September 2023.” There are nearly 3 million Venezuelans in the country.
Amid the success of a local soccer team led by a Venezuelan manager, El País highlights concerns of anti-Venezuelan migrant discrimination from the mayor of Bucaramanga, Colombia.
Real estate agents reviewing rental applications in Colombia “were less likely to choose a Venezuelan family over a Colombian or OECD family,” according to an IDB technical note based on a field experiment, highlighting the importance of addressing discrimination for integration.
Video interventions are an effective, low-cost, and scalable way to foster support for migrants, according to a World Bank and IDB policy brief based on a randomized controlled trial.
🇧🇷 Brazil
A Travessia paper investigates “xenoracism… a xenophobia that carries the full burden of historically constructed racism” in Brazil.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
A Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos paper explores the labor integration of migrants in Mexico through ethnography.
🇺🇸 United States
“A program being developed by White House officials would offer work permits and deportation protections to unauthorized immigrants married to U.S. citizens, as long as they have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years,” reports CBS, adding that “Another plan being prepared by the Biden administration would streamline the process for so-called DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants to request waivers that would make it easier for them to obtain temporary visas, such as H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.” There are potentially hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries for these programs.
“The Coalition for the American Dream released a new report showing that ending DACA would come at a trillion-dollar cost for the country, considering investments in the past decade and squandered economic contributions both past and future. Currently, there are almost 530,000 active DACA recipients,” notes National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily.
The New Yorker and The Atlantic both highlight the economic and demographic importance of immigration for the US.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
UNHCR published their annual forced displacement global trends report. Among the findings related to the Americas, 1 in 5 people living in Aruba is a refugee or person in need of international protection.
Since the Panamanian government suspended Doctors Without Borders’ activities in the Darien Gap in March, the organization has expanded its services for migrants in transit in Costa Rica. As a result, though, “providing treatment has become more complicated and it takes much longer for people to receive the urgent assistance they require to mitigate the negative impacts on their physical and mental health.” The issue is particularly acute for victims of sexual violence—there were 135 recorded in just the last month. (MSF)
🇧🇷 Brazil
“Brazil’s National Committee for Refugees (Conare) granted a record 77,193 people refugee status last year, elevating the total number of refugees in Brazil to 143,033,” reports The Brazilian Report.
There are currently nearly 400 migrants without visas—mostly from India—trapped at Guarulhos airport as they wait to either seek asylum or be deported. The situation is a “humanitarian crisis,” according to officials, and a task force has been created to respond. (Metrópoles, g1)
🇯🇲 Jamaica
“In a statement Wednesday, National Security Minister Dr. Horace Chang disclosed that the Jamaican government is developing a temporary humanitarian stay option for Haitian nationals already in Jamaica,” reports Radio Jamaica News.
🇭🇹 Haiti
“Despite the efforts of national and international organizations, the plight of children displaced by violence in Haiti persists. Stripped of their social needs, education, and a healthy environment, especially evident in refugee camps like Lycée Marie Jeanne High School, these children yearn to return home and resume their education. This reality deeply concerns parents about their children's future,” says The Haitian Times.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
“A Venezuelan who initially sought to overturn a judge’s declaration that obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention did not apply to TT, as they are not incorporated in domestic law, has withdrawn his appeal,” reports Newsday.
🇲🇽 Mexico
More than 4,000 people were violently displaced from the town of Tila in southern Mexico, reports AP, noting fears of returning home among the displaced.
“Mexico’s bloodiest election in history sends new asylum-seekers to the US border” (CNN)
Mexico should give Haitians refugee status, according to a Global Justice Clinic and Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova A.C. report that explains the potential application of the Cartagena Declaration.
🇧🇿 Belize
With the help of IOM, Belize built three new hurricane shelters to protect against the impacts of hurricanes on displaced people. (Channel 5)
🇭🇳 Honduras
Findings from a DRC and UNICEF protection report on child migrants in transit through Honduras include that “In addition to the direct and personal experiences revealed by some of the children and adolescents approached, almost all of them reported having lived in an environment characterized by the presence of violent actors, including in their countries of origin, and acts of violence in Darién” and that “Almost a third of the children and adolescents interviewed confirmed having had to sleep on the street, and another significant percentage, having had to ask for money on the street.”
🇦🇷 Argentina
Argentina has stripped refugee status from a group of former Paraguayan guerillas that had entered the country under a prior administration, reports EFE. At the same time, the government currently faces a controversy over dozens of Brazilians attempting to seek asylum in Argentina in an effort to escape judicial consequences for their alleged participation in the January 8, 2023 coup attempt, per El País.
🇺🇸 United States
The ACLU and immigrants rights groups “sued the Biden administration on Wednesday over President Joe Biden’s recent directive that effectively halts asylum claims at the southern border, saying it differs little from a similar move by the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts,” reports AP. (see last week’s AMB)
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also expressed concern about the measures. (press release)
Migrants are continuing to arrive at the border despite the policy, reports The Border Chronicle.
“Some Mexican shelters see crowding south of the border as Biden’s asylum ban takes hold,” says AP
“The United States does not plan to increase the number of daily appointments available in the CBP One application, which allows migrants arriving at the southern border to present themselves at a port of entry to request protection , asylum and access to the country,” reports EFE.
Human Rights Watch calls for the US to renew TPS and suspend deportation flights for Haitians.
ABC highlights the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in the US.
A report by a coalition of NGOs expresses concern about difficulties in contacting or locating migrants recently apprehended by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), alleging that CBP’s practices amount to “short-term enforced disappearances.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“Human rights groups are urging Canada to stop holding migrants seeking asylum in jails, often with people accused of violent crimes,” reports New York Times.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
With the G7 summit in Italy this past week discussing migration for the first time, the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection offers a regional model for addressing migration, writes former White House official Katie Tobin for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (see AMB 5/13/24 on the recent LA Declaration ministerial in Guatemala)
🇵🇾🇧🇴 Bolivia and Paraguay
Bolivia and Paraguay signed an agreement to “establish a bilateral commission to address the challenges of international migration, the design of consular and migration cooperation programs and the formulation of initiatives on advanced information exchange systems on migratory movements.” (press release)
🇲🇽🇺🇸 United States and Mexico
US officials met with Mexico’s president and president-elect to discuss migration, among other topics. (press release, Reuters)
🇧🇷 Brazil
“The absence of a defined date for the next Comigar (National Conference on Migration, Refuge and Statelessness) has caused discomfort among entities and people involved with migration issues in Brazil,” reports MigraMundo, highlighting a recent open letter calling for the government to set a date for Comigrar, originally scheduled for this June but since postponed until “the first half of November.”
Labor Migration
🇨🇦 Canada
“A significant milestone has been achieved as the first group of farmers with disabilities from Jamaica has been deployed to Canada under the Migrant Work Programme,” reports CNW.
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
“Climate change, environmental degradation and disasters are reshaping human mobility patterns across the Caribbean region… Complex interlinkages exist between migration and environmental changes in the agricultural sector, including phenomena such as desertification, reduction of soil fertility, coastal erosion, and sea level rise, all of which impact existing livelihood patterns and systems of production, and trigger different types of mobility,” according to an IOM report that highlights the “underlying challenges and opportunities, including land management, diaspora and labour mobility, gender, and indigenous knowledge.”
IOM also recently published papers looking at the relationship between climate change and migration in the Caribbean as it relates to internal migration and urbanization in Jamaica and LGBTQ+ inclusion in evacuation processes.
An Inter-American Dialogue presentation explores migration from Central America, noting that “working in agriculture and the informal economy increases the intention to migrate by 1.5 times more than those in other occupations.”
A Migraciones paper explores Mexican trafficking ring networks in relation to Central American migrant caravans. (via Forced Migration Current Awareness)
🇪🇨 Ecuador
“Around 68,000 Ecuadorians left in the months of February and March: 34,000 each month. Never, since the beginning of the new wave of migration, have we had these figures,” reports Nodal. (see also a special edition of the AMB from earlier this year about Ecuador’s security crisis and emigration)
🇧🇷 Brazil
An IOM DTM survey of migrants entering Brazil through the state of Acre identified primarily Venezuelan migrants entering the country, with 76% of respondents stating that their most recent country of residence was Peru. 71% identified lack of work as their reason for leaving Peru.
🇺🇾 Uruguay
CiberCuba highlights the story of a Cuban mother’s transit to Guyana and across Brazil en route to Uruguay, where she is now seeking asylum.
Borders and Enforcement
🌎 Regional
Maritime migration and apprehensions of Haitians and other nationalities continue. From recent days, for example, “U.S. Coast Guard crews returned a combined 305 migrants to the Bahamas and Haiti,” per a press release, while the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force together detained over 100 irregular migrants across multiple interceptions, per Loop.
🇺🇸 United States
The Biden administration’s newly announced measures to restrict asylum between ports of entry is limited by capacity to conduct deportation flights, reports AP, explaining that “the government lacks the money and authority to deport everyone subject to the measure, especially people from countries in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe who didn’t start showing up at the border until recently.” (see last week’s AMB)
Even still, “Thousands of migrants have been deported under the ban so far, according to two senior Homeland Security Department officials who briefed reporters Friday on condition that they not be named. There were 17 deportation flights, including one to Uzbekistan. Those deported include people from Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru and Mexico.”
“The State Department on Tuesday announced up to $8 million in rewards to target human smugglers operating in the largely ungoverned Darién region between Colombia and Panama,” reports CBS.
The Border Chronicle asked Cato’s David Bier in a Q&A “what he thought were the top three false narratives proclaimed, promoted, and propagated during this year’s campaign season. His response: (1) “Donald Trump had the most secure border in America’s history,” (2) “Joe Biden opened America’s borders to illegal immigration,” and (3) “Recent immigration is helping Democrats.””
“The Biden administration has again imposed visa restrictions an an executive of a charter flight company as it continues to target those facilitating illegal migration from Nicaragua,” says UPI.
More on Migration
🇨🇺 Cuba
A CEDA interview explores the impacts of growing Cuban emigration in recent years.