Americas Migration Brief - March 18, 2024
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
A Baker Institute brief explores Mexico and Brazil’s refugee/migrant relocation programs, noting, “The fact that these innovative, and largely successful, relocation programs are being implemented by two refugee-hosting countries in the Global South is noteworthy and shows that local integration for refugees remains a viable and durable solution… By finding solutions that not only enhance refugee protection and well-being but also cater to domestic labor needs, these initiatives promote a mutually beneficial scenario.”
For more on Brazil’s interiorization program to relocate Venezuelan migrants, including challenges and opportunities for improvement, check out a recent special edition of the AMB.
An MPI report explores the impacts of COVID-19 on migration in South America, from labor market participation to vaccine access to border closures and more.
🇬🇾 Guyana
“Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd on Friday chaired a meeting of the Multi-Agency Coordinating Committee to address the influx of Migrants from Venezuela and said that the long-term objective was to integrate them into Guyanese society,” reports Stabroek News.
The statement has received criticism from the Guyanese opposition, which has asserted “readiness to provide humanitarian relief and support,” but a desire for greater public debate before commitment to an integration-oriented approach. (Village Voice News)
In a recent special edition of the AMB, I explored (mis)perceptions of Venezuelan migrants in Guyana, noting that despite concerns of criminality, the data shows that Venezuelans in Guyana commit crimes at lower rates than their share of the total population.
🇦🇷 Argentina
An increasing number of Russians are migrating to—and laying down roots in—Latin America, reports Reuters, highlighting local integration in Argentina, noting, “The influx is gradually changing the complexion of city neighborhoods. Russian-run cafes and beauty salons have popped up around Buenos Aires in well-heeled Recoleta and trendy Palermo.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“Demonstrators gathered in Montreal's Parc-Extension neighbourhood Saturday to demand the federal government grant permanent residency status for all undocumented people living in Canada. Similar protests took place across the country as part of what's been called the ‘Migrant Spring,’” says CBC.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
“Instead of restrictive policies that further endanger people seeking asylum or refuge due to climate change and the violence unleashed by this phenomenon, governments in the Americas must establish pathways for displaced individuals, who often belong to marginalized communities, to find safety,” says Dejusticia.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“The Dominican Republic has been deporting hundreds of Haitians a day, despite the fact that their country is in the midst of an acute humanitarian crisis. ‘The message the Dominican Republic appears to be sending is no matter how bad things become at home, Haitians should not seek refuge on Dominican territory,’ reports the BBC.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)
One deportation operation in El Seibo has been denounced as violent and violating human rights, reports Acento: “In the operation, the agents and soldiers, according to the complaint, broke the doors of several homes and in the end took several people in a truck, including pregnant women and minors, apparently with the intention of expelling them to Haiti.”
“Anti-Haitian groups are proliferating in various places along the border and even in the capital, Santo Domingo, where they have allied themselves with both the military and politicians to ‘stop the Haitian invasion.’ One night in early March, we witnessed the kidnapping by armed groups of dozens of undocumented Haitians living in border towns, a common practice over the past year. Hooded men went around the houses, beating, threatening, and capturing young Haitians. After tying them up, they took them to police headquarters, where they were again brutally beaten by officers before being deported to Haiti in trucks fitted with cages,” reports Le Monde.
🇯🇲 Jamaica
Jamaica’s opposition is calling for a change in the country’s approach to Haitian arrivals, including advocating for “(1) Full and inclusive implementation of the Refugee Convention, including the suspension of the forced returns of the Haitian people who arrive here in Jamaica; (2) Access to territory and efficient asylum-seeking procedures; (3) Solidarity and shared responsibility; and (4) A durable solution which takes into account Jamaica’s limited capacity to absorb large numbers of migrants/refugees.” (Loop, see also CNW)
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Michoacan could soon become the 5th Mexican State to adopt a law to protect and support solutions for internally displaced people,” says UNHCR’s Martina Caterina on Twitter, citing altorre.
🇺🇾 Uruguay
Heavy rains and flooding have displaced 1,434 Uruguayans in the interior of the country, reports El Observador.
🇨🇴 Colombia
“The number of displaced people due to combat in Cauca rises to 200” (La Nación)
Colombia launched a new refugee application digitalization and monitoring platform that aims to improve processing efficiency. (press release)
🇵🇦 Panama
As a result of a fire that destroyed the San Vicente temporary station for migrants that have crossed the Darien Gap, the Lajas Blancas temporary station has become “overcrowded” and “overflowing” with migrants that have recently crossed the Darien en route north. Furthermore, legal actions since January 2024 have halted the informal money transfer services near Lajas Blancas, meaning more migrants are stranded at the station for longer time as they attempt to gather money to pay for the bus from Panama to Costa Rica, according to a Red Cross report looking at migration scenarios in the Darien in 2024. (LinkedIn)
“Posting to Twitter while on a visit to Panama’s side of the Darién Gap, human rights lawyer Julia Neusner reported that Panamanian police used force to put down a peaceful protest staged by migrants stranded at a government-run reception center. At least 12 migrants who had participated in the protest were detained, and their relatives do not know where they are.” (Twitter1, Twitter2; via WOLA)
🇨🇱 Chile
A policy proposal under debate in Chile considers changing the rules of use of force by military and police to differentiate rules based on if the subject is a part of a “vulnerable” group. The proposal’s consideration of migrants as a vulnerable group has sparked controversy among members of the opposition. The government has indicated openness to modifying the proposal and “finding a solution.” (La Tercera)
🇺🇸 United States
“More Migrants Are Drowning in the Rio Grande Than Ever. No Agency Is Keeping Track of How Many.” (Texas Monthly)
“The U.S. officers who screen migrants at the border to determine eligibility for asylum have been plowing through cases at a record clip since last May, when the Biden administration placed tougher restrictions on people who cross illegally. The officers are completing twice as many interviews per month as they did a year ago,” reports Washington Post, noting that despite these advances, “the number of people screened remains a small fraction of the number who cross the border illegally. And the government does not have the detention capacity to hold others long enough to interview them.”
“President Biden told reporters that he is no longer considering executive action on migration at the border, like a legally dubious order to expel asylum seekers when daily migration exceeds a particular amount. On February 21, several media outlets had reported that the White House was considering such an action. Yesterday, Biden instead called on Congress to change the law.” (Twitter, via WOLA)
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, explaining the details on the Biden administration’s 2025 Homeland Security budget request.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
Jamaica has reiterated its commitment to expanding to full free movement in CARICOM. (Gleaner, see last week’s AMB)
The Bahamas has reiterated that it will not take part in free movement. The country does not take part in the current, limited version through CARICOM’s CSME. (Loop)
An editorial at The Gleaner calls for Antigua and Barbuda to reconsider its decision to not take part in the expansion to full free movement in CARICOM, arguing that the policy would benefit, not hinder, the economy.
“The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is yet to establish a policy for treating Haitian refugees who arrive on the shores of member states even amid the decision to establish a presidential council for the violence-torn country that would oversee a future national election,” reports Gleaner, noting that a lack of refugee policies in some CARICOM countries’ domestic legal frameworks plays a role.
The Dutch State Secretary for Justice and Security visited Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire to discuss migration policy, human trafficking, and border enforcement, including exploring “possibilities for promoting cooperation between border authorities.” The three islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. (Bonaire)
“Politicians on Bonaire want to introduce stricter conditions for migrants who want to live and work on the island” and look to bring up the issue with Dutch officials, reports Caribisch Netwerk.
🇪🇨🇺🇸 United States and Ecuador
US and Ecuador officials discussed migration, among other topics, during a high-level dialogue last week, and Ecuador “committed to extend the Safe Mobility Initiative through the end of 2024.” (joint statement)
🇪🇺🇨🇷 Costa Rica and European Union
Costa Rican officials are in Brussels looking to court greater international aid and cooperation from the EU to address migration. (DW)
🇧🇷 Brazil
MigraMundo highlights the “marathon” of local and state-level conferences leading up to Brazil’s second Comigrar (National Conference of Migrations, Refuge, and Statelessness) in June. Comigrar serves as a mechanism for hearing input from civil society, legislators, migrants, and other actors and developing new policy proposals in and across the country.
🇨🇦 Canada
“Quebec will not get full power over which immigrants it takes in, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday after meeting with Premier François Legault,” who had asked “for the federal government to transfer all immigration powers to Quebec,” reports CBC.
Labor Migration
🌎 Regional
“Farmers and authorities on the Mexico-Guatemala border warn of an 80% drop in the last two years of Mexican and Central American day laborers in coffee and sugarcane crops because they prefer to migrate to the United States amid the violence and drought that affects to the region,” reports Aristegui Noticias.
🇺🇸 United States
“The House Committee on Agriculture recently released its final report on how to address worker shortages in farming by improving the H-2A guest worker program, reports Alexander Fabino for Newsweek. The report was presented by the bipartisan Agriculture Labor Working Group (ALWG) and includes among other recommendations: simplifying the hiring process for H-2A workers, adjusting employee pay based on duties, creating a standard wage calculation, and granting year-round industries access to H-2A, Fabino notes.” (via National Immigration Forum)
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
A Mixed Migration Centre report explores the use of smugglers in northbound migration through surveys in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico, finding, “Respondents surveyed in 2022 and 2023 reported using smugglers at rates of 49% and 34% respectively. This decline could be the consequence of an increase in the overall number of people on the move in the region, the greater use and sharing of maps by people on the move, and the reopening of the border between Colombia and Venezuela.”
🇬🇹 Guatemala
An IOM report explores the impact of climate change on migration in Guatemala, addressing topics such as impacts on health, economics, resources, political stability, infrastructure, and more.
🇧🇷 Brazil
“Rural exodus in Brazil is almost twice the global average and challenges sustainability in the cities and rural areas” (Brasil de Fato)
A small but growing number of Brazilians are attempting to emigrate to the US, reports Infobae, noting that the trend includes a worrying rise in unaccompanied minors, the majority children of Haitians or Angolans that had migrated to Brazil in recent years.
🇺🇸 United States
During Fiscal Year 2023, 1,423,579 unique individuals were apprehended a total of 2,045,838 times by US immigration officials. “So 30.4% of apprehensions in FY23 were actually a failed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc... entry,” notes American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on Twitter.
Borders and Enforcement
🇲🇽 Mexico
“The Government of Mexico will repatriate undocumented migrants that it detains in its territory by land to seven Central American countries, in accordance with a tender that the National Immigration Institute (INM) launched to hire the buses that will be in charge of transporting the migrants,” reports El Sol de México.
The Guardian highlights Mexico’s growing role in border enforcement, noting, “deportations have not risen in step with detentions – on the contrary, they collapsed last year, to a little over 50,000. In the first year of López Obrador’s administration, deportations as a percentage of detentions stood at 88%. In 2023, they stood at 6.8%. What is happening instead, according to human rights organisations, is that migrants are being put on buses and sent back south, sometimes all the way to the border with Guatemala.” These enforcement strategies, however, are reportedly largely informal and details are “murky.”
“Analysts at Mexico City’s Universidad Ibero published a 250-page report on the militarization of Mexico’s civilian migration agency (National Migration Institute, INM). It points to the agency’s increasing portrayal of migrants as “internal enemies”; the use of military-grade weapons in migrant detention operations (by Mexican National Guard personnel accompanying INM agents); placement of retired officers in INM managerial positions; and use of surveillance technologies, among other indicators. The report sees a U.S. government role in encouraging some of these changes.” (report, executive summary; via WOLA)
🇺🇸 United States
“The State Department of the United States Government adopted new measures to ‘impose visa restrictions on executives of charter flight companies’ that facilitate irregular migration to the United States with flights to Nicaragua,” the first restrictions of their kind under a new policy, reports Confidencial. (press release)
“The Biden administration is discussing using Guantanamo Bay to process Haitian migrants if there is a mass exodus to the US amid worsening conditions in the country,” reports CNN.
“Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is ordering more than 250 law enforcement officers and soldiers to the Florida Keys to help stop what he anticipates to be an increase in Haitian migrants fleeing violence in their country… But so far, the Coast Guard hasn't seen increased migrant traffic in the waters off Florida,” reports AP.
“The Washington Post summarized five border-hardening or migration-restriction initiatives that Texas’s state government, under Republican Governor Greg Abbott, has sought to take: the “Operation Lone Star” buildup; S.B. 4; shutting Border Patrol out of a riverfront park in Eagle Pass; placing concertina wire along the river; and busing migrants to Democratic-governed cities.” (via WOLA)
A “$6 billion tower surveillance program” has been quietly growing since 2005 and “is projected to reach ‘full operational capability’ in 2034, a network of over 1,000 manned and unmanned towers covering the thousands of miles that make up America’s northern and southern borders,” says The Intercept.
“The case for admitting Uruguay into the Visa Waiver Program” (Niskanen Center)
🇹🇨 Turks and Caiacos
“140 irregular migrants were intercepted as they attempted to enter the Turks and Caicos Islands,” reports Loop, noting the migrants are believed to be from Haiti.
“Britain said on Thursday it had agreed a security package to protect the borders of the Turks and Caicos Islands - a British Overseas Territory - in response to the risk violence in Haiti could spread,” reports Reuters.
🇧🇸 The Bahamas
“The Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) has successfully apprehended one hundred and seven (107) Haitian migrants in waters near Matthew Town, Inagua, on Monday, March 12th, 2024.” (Magnetic Media, see last week’s AMB on border enforcement mobilization)
More on Migration
🌎 Regional
47% of Dominicans and 43% of Ecuadorians would very likely emigrate if they had the resources to do so, according to a CID Gallup poll from January 2024. Costa Ricans and Panamanians reported the least interest, at 23% and 20%, respectively. (Twitter)
🇵🇾 Paraguay
An IOM report explores the role the Paraguayan diaspora could play in the country’s development.
🇨🇦 Canada
“IRCC’s action plan to address the permanent residence application backlog” (CIC News)