Americas Migration Brief - November 17, 2025
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇨🇱 Chile
Following yesterday’s first round, “Chile’s presidential election is heading to a run-off in December, in a showdown between leftist former Labour Minister Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast,” reports Al Jazeera, noting, “Kast, 59, has pledged to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to keep out migrants and asylum seekers from poorer countries to the north, such as Venezuela.” Backed by conservative runner-ups from the first round, Kast is the favorite to win the runoff.
“Even migrants with legal status fear their lives would be turned upside down if the far-right wins power,” reports France24. (see also Buenos Aires Times)
Despite the 2023 registration of more than 180,000 irregular migrants, the Chilean government has yet to commit to a regularization program, write Teresita Rocha Jiménez and Sarahí Rueda at El Mostrador.
The academics “analyzed the results of the survey conducted by SERMIG in 2024 on a sample of all registered individuals… The vast majority of registered individuals completed secondary education, and one in three has higher education. These figures disprove the prejudice that irregular migration is associated with low qualifications or a lack of preparation. On the contrary, they show that many of these individuals possess the training and skills that the country needs in key sectors such as health, services, education, and technology.” Furthermore, they note, “Seven out of ten registered residents have children, most of them living in Chile. Many of these children were born here, but they grow up in uncertainty: one in five Chilean children lacks access to healthcare, leaving them outside the most basic social protection systems.”
🇬🇾 Guyana
“While many Cubans have found a better quality of life in Guyana compared to their homeland, their lack of permanent documentation is forcing highly-skilled professionals into low-skilled jobs,” reports Stabroek News, noting that Cuban civil society in Guyana estimate that 5,000-6,000 Cubans reside in the country.
“The primary hurdle for the Cuban community is the difficulty in obtaining legal status and citizenship. Gil said that the current process is “very difficult,” involving only three-month visa extensions, with a possible further restriction to just two extensions total.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
IOM is “working to streamline Mexican bureaucratic processes and secure residency for migrants who wish to work… currently, the authorization process can take months,” reports El País, highlighting the economic opportunity in harnessing migration for Mexico.
🇺🇸 United States
“The Trump administration is planning a policy change that could make it harder for immigrants to get green cards and other approvals if they are from countries subject to the president’s travel ban… The shift would make it more challenging for those who arrived in the country before the travel ban to remain,” reports The New York Times. Partial and full travel bans apply to 19 total countries, including Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
With an estimated 2,487 displaced Jamaicans remaining in collective emergency centres due to the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, IOM is set to receive free emergency housing from Airbnb for displaced individuals. (see last week’s AMB)
“Forty-four members of the US Congress are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Jamaican nationals in the United States, citing widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa,” reports The Gleaner. The Trump administration, however, has moved to end existing TPS designations for several countries in recent months (see more below).
54,000 Cubans remain internally displaced by Hurricane Melissa, says CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief.
“A 3-year-old child died after a boat carrying migrants toward Colombia capsized off Panama’s Caribbean Coast… This is the second known case in which a child drowned on a new migrant route that sprouted up early this year to help shuttle people back toward their home countries in South America after the Trump administration virtually sealed the U.S. border to migrants,” reports The New York Times.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“A newborn baby, the son of a Haitian citizen, died at a Migrant Processing Center in the Dominican Republic… an investigation has been initiated to clarify the circumstances of the death,” reports EFE, noting, “More than 370,000 undocumented Haitians have been deported from the Dominican Republic in the last year, following the tightening of immigration policies by the government of Luis Abinader, amid reports of human rights violations and mass raids.”
🇨🇴 Colombia
La Silla Vacía highlights delays in access to protection in Colombia, with more than 29,500 individuals’ applications for refugee status pending: “The process, which should be resolved in months, can take three years or more. Since 2024, only 118 people have been officially recognized as refugees.”
🇸🇻🇺🇲 United States and El Salvador
A report by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal investigates the Trump administration’s deportation of 252 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador earlier this year in “the most comprehensive account to date of the treatment these people endured.” Interviews of nearly 200 individuals and review of documents and records reveal that these migrants “were subjected to what amounts to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance under international human rights law… (and) to inhumane prison conditions, including prolonged incommunicado detention, inadequate food, denial of basic hygiene and sanitation, limited access to health care and medicine, and lack of recreational or educational activities, in violation of several provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.” (see also last week’s AMB)
Furthermore, “detainees were subjected to constant beatings and other forms of ill-treatment, including some cases of sexual violence. Many of these abuses constitute torture under international human rights law. People held in CECOT said they were beaten from the moment they arrived in El Salvador and throughout their time in detention. Guards and riot police beat them in the hallways of the prison module and in a solitary confinement cell in a section of CECOT known as “the Island.” They beat them during daily cell searches for allegedly violating prison rules, such as speaking loudly with other detainees or showering at the wrong time, and sometimes for requesting medical treatment… Every former detainee interviewed reported being subjected to serious physical and psychological abuse on a near-daily basis, throughout their entire time in detention.”
🇺🇸 United States
The Trump administration is moving to end TPS for some 5,000 South Sudanese beneficiaries—“Despite recent warnings from the United Nations and other organizations that South Sudan could actually be slipping back into a state of open warfare,” per CBS.
The New York Times documents a growing trend of “family separations that, to some, recall the policies of the first Trump administration, when children were pried from their parents’ arms soon after they crossed the southern border into the United States. These cases, though, target immigrants who are already living in the United States. Immigration officials say parents who are being deported are given the option of bringing their U.S. born children with them as they are removed from the country.” The New York Times, however, highlights a case of a parent being offered no such choice, noting, “immigration lawyers and advocacy groups say the speed and scale at which federal agents are effecting deportations is leading to family separations.”
“‘It Feels Like I’m in a Nightmare’: Inside the First Deportation Flight to Iran. For decades, Iranians fleeing persecution have found protection in the United States. But this fall, the Trump administration deported a planeload of people to Iran after making a deal with Tehran.” (The New York Times)
An MPI policy brief explores the significant backlogs in US immigration court—with asylum cases representing 63% of pending cases—and potential reforms to fix the system. The immigration court system has been severely underfunded, while the Trump administration has also moved to fire judges and install military lawyers in their place. Recommendations include “Fully implementing the 2022 asylum officer rule, allowing trained USCIS asylum officers to decide new border-filed claims and thus enabling immigration judges to focus on the existing caseload. Prioritizing cases involving national-security and public-safety concerns while deferring lower-risk matters until the backlog declines… (and) Expanding access to legal advice and representation in partnership with nonprofit providers, bar associations and other community organizations.” (press release)
In an interview with Sister Tracey Horan of Kino Border Initiative, The Border Chronicle highlights inhumane overcrowding conditions in US detention centers.
“A revealing new investigation by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) exposes how a senior Border Patrol official, Gregory Bovino, has led agents who use force against civilians at rates far higher than the rest of the agency,” reports Migrant Insider.
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “About 200 Border Patrol agents at the heart of the so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” campaign in Chicago will be departing the city soon. Along with high-profile commander Gregory Bovino, they are reportedly headed to Charlotte and New Orleans. Bovino’s aggressive tactics in Los Angeles and Chicago, which have earned rebukes from judges, have brought into sharp relief the difference between Border Patrol’s and ICE’s approaches.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎🇺🇸 United States and Regional
Ecuador and the US signed a “Safe Third Country Agreement” in July, but the agreement was only made public last week. (El Universo, Bloomberg)
“U.S. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio for paying $7.5 million to the government of Equatorial Guinea to agree to take deportees from the United States who are not its citizens. She sent him a letter saying that the “highly unusual payment — to one of the most corrupt governments in the world — raises serious concerns over the responsible, transparent use of American taxpayer dollars.”” (New York Times; via Latin America Daily Briefing)
🇦🇷 Argentina
“Argentine President Javier Milei officially announced a Cabinet reorganization on Tuesday that involves transferring areas related to immigration and document management to the Ministry of National Security,” reports EFE.
Civil society and human rights organizations have expressed concerns about the move and the increasing securitization of the Milei administration’s migration policy. (Tiempo)
🇧🇷 Brazil
MigraMundo highlights efforts to document Indigenous international migrants from Andean countries in Brazil’s most recent census.
Labor Migration
🇪🇨 Ecuador
“A total of 255 Ecuadorians will be hired temporarily for periods of up to one year in Italy as part of the first edition of the circular migration program agreed between the governments of both countries,” reports EFE, noting, “the 255 temporary job vacancies in Italian companies will be for health and industrial mechanics professionals, whose selection process has already begun, where those who meet the profile and learn Italian with the support of the Italian Embassy will be chosen.”
“The Circular Migration Program between Ecuador and Spain continues to strengthen as a safe and orderly alternative for temporary work abroad. Between October 23 and November 11, a total of 130 Ecuadorian farmers traveled to the province of Almería, Spain , to begin seasonal agricultural work,” reports El Oriente.
🇺🇸 United States
“An upcoming Trump administration rule is expected to end or restrict Optional Practical Training (OPT) for international students… It would be the latest measure that critics say is aimed at discouraging international students from coming to the United States and working after graduation. The rule would contradict the sentiments Donald Trump expressed in 2024, when he said on a podcast he wanted all international students to stay and work in America,” reports Forbes.
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
Niskanen Center “attempts to model what new outflows from Venezuela might look like based on different U.S. actions.” If the US were to invade Venezuela or trigger protracted internal conflict through strikes, for example, a further 4+ million Venezuelans could be displaced internationally, according to their estimates.
Thus far, “the exodus of Venezuelans leaving their country remains stable despite the large-scale US military operation against boats allegedly linked to drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea, according to UNHCR,” reports EFE.
🇬🇹 Guatemala
An IMF working paper “examines the role of agricultural distortions in shaping emigration patterns and influencing productivity and welfare in developing countries, using Guatemala as a case study… Our model identifies two key channels through which agricultural distortions affect migration and productivity: a first channel where distortions increase emigration among more productive agents, reducing aggregate productivity, and a second channel where distortions drive factor misallocation, lowering incomes and increasing overall emigration.”
🇲🇽 Mexico
El Paso Times looks at the slowed northbound migration through Mexico and the infamous La Bestia train: “What few migrants continue heading north quickly head from the Casa Migrante, slipping through holes in the fences, to the trains to travel to either Sonora or Juárez after leaving the shelter. The migrants now passing through Villa Ahumada go largely unseen, a testament to how the policies of Trump have driven migration back into the shadows. The El Paso Times spent days trying to find someone who arrived in Juárez in 2025 on the Devil’s Train without any luck. For years, a vast majority of asylum seekers made it within miles of the U.S.-Mexico border aboard the train.”
🇨🇴 Colombia
“Current overview of migration in Colombia: Regular and irregular trends and dynamics” (Migración Colombia report)
Borders and Enforcement
🇺🇸 United States
“District Judge Jeffrey Cummings on Wednesday afternoon ordered the release of at least 313 people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement between June and early October,” reports Axios, explaining that the Illinois-based ruling “validates some of the recent accusations of ICE violations and could create a template for other legal action across the country.”
“How Much Has DHS Really Spent on Self-Deportations? The Department of Homeland Security promises a $1,000 bonus to anyone who self-deports ... but refuses to say how many people have taken it up on the offer.” (The New Republic)
“Emails show that as the Trump administration hastily prepared the Guantanamo military base to detain foreign men, earlier this year, soldiers and civilian workers improvised amid confusion over plans that initially called for tent cities to hold up to 30,000 people.” (New York Times; via Latin America Daily Briefing)
“Foreigners seeking visas to live in the U.S. might be rejected if they have certain medical conditions, including diabetes or obesity,” according to a new Trump administration policy, reports KFF Health News.
“In a rare group statement, America’s Catholic bishops voted nearly unanimously Wednesday to condemn the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants,” reports Washington Post.
This comprehenive briefing highlights the complexity of migration dynamics accross the Americas. The Chile election analysis showing the political polarization on migration policy is particuarly revealing. The data on irregular migrant education levels challenges common misconceptions about migrant qualifications and their potentail economic contributions to host countries.