Welcome to the Americas Migration Brief! If you find this newsletter useful, please consider sharing with a friend or colleague.
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.
Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🇨🇴 Colombia
The newly announced Special Visitors Visa to temporarily regularize Venezuelans in Colombia (see AMB 9/30/24) is “so close yet so far,” according to an op-ed by a group of researchers at El Spectador. Key opportunities for improving the visa include creating more flexible documentation and certification requirements; expanding the program to “regularize prospectively and not only retrospectively as is currently contemplated;” and reconsidering the “requirement of documents that demonstrate the occupation or activity that the migrant will carry out,” which is “unclear but potentially devastating,” particularly for informal workers, mothers, and pensioners.
A Colombia Diversa report explores the situation of LGBTIQ+ migrants in Colombia, characterizing the population, identifying the unique bureaucratic and discrimination-related challenges they face, and highlighting the threat of violence and discrimination.
A UNDP working paper looks at the potential fiscal impacts of integrating Venezuelan migration in Colombia from 2022-2028.
🇲🇽 Mexico
UNHCR surveyed Mexican nationals in Mexico on their attitudes towards migrants and refugees. Findings include that “The population is divided regarding what the government's response to refugees and migrants should be: 51 percent stressed that the government should respond in accordance with their rights and needs; 32 percent said that they should only be allowed to transit quickly through Mexico, while 13 percent said that the southern border should be closed and they should be expelled to their country.” (UNHCR, UN News)
🇨🇷 Costa Rica
Two recent studies (1, 2) “reveal both the contributions and vulnerabilities of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica,” says UNHCR, highlighting findings such as “poverty affects 28% of Nicaraguans compared to 20% of locals, while 11% live in extreme poverty (vs. 7% for nationals). These gaps are in part attributed to lower educational attainment: 63% of Nicaraguans aged 18-35 have not completed secondary education, compared to 33% of Costa Ricans.”
🇵🇪 Peru
More than 40,000 migrants in Peru have not picked up their Foreigner's Card or Temporary Residence Permit Card (CPP) documentation that proves their regular immigration status and provides access to key public services, per a government bulletin.
🇺🇸 United States
MPI has published a series of explainers ahead of the US presidential election, breaking down the facts on issues such as immigration and crime, immigration and use of public benefits, noncitizen voting, and a breakdown on who are immigrants in the US.
Amid a restrictionist shift in public attitudes and policy, Detention Watch Network’s Silky Shah writes at Inquest about how immigration advocates and supporters can mobilize a movement in response to either a Trump or Harris administration in 2025: “Ahead of the election, immigrants' rights advocates are working hard to be ready, no matter who wins.”
🇨🇦 Canada
Even despite souring public attitudes in immigration in Canada, there is still public consensus on support for the importance of immigration for the country. “Even the Conservative Party seems on board,” writes Alexander Kustov at Good Authority.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🌎 Regional
Caracas Chronicles explores regional responses to Venezuelan displacement following the stolen July 28th election: “Thousands of asylum requests pile up in neighboring countries following July 28. However, with diplomatic relations breaking down and the lack of a common regional policy, Venezuelan migrants are running out of options.”
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“Haitian sugarcane cutters at several Dominican factories, including Consorcio Azucarero Central, have faced violence while demanding better working conditions. They have been denied wages, beaten during protests, shot at, and threatened with deportation to Haiti, leaving several workers hospitalized. This situation has worsened as deportations of Haitians increase,” reports The Haitian Times.
A joint statement from a collection of civil society organizations “strongly (condemns) the Dominican Republic’s plans to deport an estimated 10,000 Haitian migrants a week to unsafe conditions in Haiti.” (see last week’s AMB on the new initiative)
In a separate statement, “The Dominican Conference of Religious Men and Women (CONDOR) rejected the political use of the Haitian issue and the rigid immigration measures that, it denounced, seek to divert attention by criminalizing migrants instead of focusing on cleaning up the police, military and border authorities that should regulate the migratory flow without corruption.” (Acento)
“The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemns the attack perpetrated in the Dominican Republic against the headquarters of the Sociocultural Movement for Humanitarian and Environmental Work (MOSCTHA), an organization that advocates for migrants' rights… The IACHR notes that these events took place in a broader context marked by racism, xenophobia, and other forms of hostility against Haitians and human rights defenders that the IACHR already documented in the past.” (press release)
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Mexico received 58,806 asylum requests from January to September 2024, a 48% year-on-year decrease after the record of 113,177 registered last year,” reports Proceso, noting that Hondurans make up nearly 40% of the applications thus far this year.
Mexico’s practice of busing migrants further south in the country, away from the US-Mexico border, is putting migrants at risk of organized crime and fueling a gang war in southern Mexico as organized crime groups aim to expand their control over the migrant extortion racket, reports InSight Crime.
2 Mexican soldiers who killed 6 migrants in southern Mexico “will be tried under military laws, a key issue for human rights activists who say the process lacks transparency,” reports Reuters, noting doubts over the soldiers’ claim of explosions as the cause of the shooting. (see AMB 10/7/24)
A group of civil society organizations published a series of 11 planks for a new migration and asylum policy in Mexico during the Sheinbaum presidency, 2024-2030. Recommendations include recognizing and developing policies in response to climate-related displacement. (IMUMI)
Mexico recently launched a new institutional approach to migration, the “Mexican Model of Human Mobility.” (see AMB 9/9/24)
A Migrante33 report explores the human rights and migratory situation of Colombian migrants residing in and transiting through Mexico.
🇧🇷 Brazil
“The Federal Court denied the collective habeas corpus request filed by the Federal Public Defender's Office (DPU) so that 104 immigrants who are being held at São Paulo International Airport, in Guarulhos, could seek refuge in Brazil and regularize their immigration status,” reports g1. (see AMB 8/26/24 on Brazil’s new rule to prevent migrants in transit from leaving their connecting flights and entering Brazil without a visa)
🇨🇴 Colombia
A CODHES report explores “forced displacement caused by climatic, environmental and related factors in Colombia, based on data monitored by the Information System on Forced Displacement and Human Rights (SISDHES) during 2023.”
🇨🇺 Cuba
Reuters reports on Cuban maritime migration and the impacts on those remaining on the island, highlighting increasing “invisible” shipwrecks and migrants missing at sea.
🇺🇸 United States
A new special edition of the AMB, published in parallel at Boom, explores the complexities of the US border and humanitarian migration policies in an article-comic focused on the CHNV humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The comic illustrates how the program has proven a great success that has granted protection to many, but also faces limitations in accessibility for the most vulnerable.
Immigration Impact explains the Biden administration’s decision to not allow renewals of parole grants under the CHNV program and what other options remain available for CHNV beneficiaries.
“The independent Cuba-focused media outlet El Toque pointed out that CBP One appointments at the U.S.-Mexico border now rival the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program as the best option available for people fleeing the island.” (El Toque; via Daily Border Links)
“The focus on blocking migrants from filing asylum claims distorts the debate over immigration and limits the universe of policy solutions; the overwhelmed asylum system is not the cause of the border crisis but rather a consequence of the United States’ failure to develop a coherent response to global shifts in irregular migration,” says Fwd.us’s Andrea Flores at Foreign Affairs, writing, “With both the demand for and the number of immigrants set to remain extraordinarily high, the only way to reduce unauthorized migration is to expand protections and regional employment opportunities for displaced people in the Western Hemisphere, make legal immigration easier by increasing pathways for entry into the United States, modernizing infrastructure at the border, and better integrating immigrants once they have arrived.”
“More than a hundred organizations are asking the White House to shut down a migrant processing facility at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and stop detaining asylum seekers found at sea at the center. ‘The U.S. government cannot continue to hide its diversion and mistreatment of asylum seekers by exiling them to Guantánamo, out of reach of their families, advocates, public consciousness – and the law,’ the organizations said,” reports Miami Herald. (letter available here)
A Niskanen Center policy memo explores the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), arguing that in addition to providing protection to those in need, the program provides value for US foreign policy abroad and revitalizes communities domestically.
“Ten times as many migrants died in New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border in each of the last two years compared with just five years ago as smuggling gangs steer them — exhausted, dehydrated and malnourished — mostly into the hot desert, canyons or mountains west of El Paso, Texas,” reports AP.
“How a Compromised Search and Rescue System Leaves Migrants in Peril: Saving lives often takes a back seat to immigration enforcement.” (Mother Jones)
IRAP calls for a renewal of support for the Iraqi P-2 DAP program to resettle “tens of thousands of U.S.-affiliated Iraqis in harm’s way.”
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, including updates from the presidential campaign trail and that “Aaron Heitke, who served as chief of Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector and is now retired, alleged in a recent congressional hearing that Biden administration officials had “pushed him” to hide groups of asylum-seeking migrants “out of sight” of cameras as they waited between layers of the border wall to turn themselves in. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official speaking on background to Voice of San Diego denied Heitke’s allegations. Lilian Serrano of the Southern Border Communities Coalition said that Heitke’s claim confirmed humanitarian groups’ suspicions that Border Patrol “hides migrants from our view…so that we don’t see violations” of policies for humane treatment of people waiting to turn themselves in.”
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
Costa Rica hosted a technical meeting of national refugee commissions from across the Americas, including the 17 member countries of the Quito Process and MIRPS. (press release)
“IOM and the Trinational Commission for the Trifinio Plan (CTPT) signed today a cooperation agreement to promote sustainable development and migration governance in the Trifinio region, an area that covers 8 districts in El Salvador, 15 municipalities in Guatemala and 22 municipalities in Honduras.” (press release, see also La Hora)
Ministers from Canada and the US met with counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, releasing a joint statement on irregular migration.
🇲🇽🇺🇸 United States and Mexico
“For two decades U.S. officials have asserted that extending the border is a fundamental part of their strategy to stop people from reaching the U.S. international boundary,” says The Border Chronicle, highlighting US-Mexico cooperation on border enforcement.
Labor Migration
🇨🇱 Chile
Agricultural sector leaders at a national conference expressed concern surrounding a “migratory disorder in Chile” and its impacts on the sector, including a lack of access to rapidly available visas, reportedly mentioning that this has caused labor informality among workers. (BioBioChile)
🇺🇸 United States
Slight changes in regulation will reportedly ease access to the the EB-1 labor migration-related category. EB-1 “is for persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years of experience in teaching or research “who are recognized internationally,” and certain multinational managers or executives.” (Forbes)
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
Mongabay looks at migration to urban centers in the Amazon region, spanning Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela: “a very large proportion of its immigrants are small farmers who originally came from the High Andes and Northeastern Brazil, wagering their future on the frontier landscapes of the Pan Amazon.”
Chinese migration through the Darien Gap has fallen sharply amid crackdowns and Ecuador’s visa waiver suspension, reports Nikkei Asia. (see AMB 6/24/24)
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Multiple migrant caravans are moving north from southern Mexico, and more are scheduled to leave this week, Mexican news outlets in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala report,” reports Border Report.
“The pressure is building in Tapachula and Villahermosa, the two cities along the Mexico-Guatemala border where tens of thousands of migrants remain trapped. Last weekend, a caravan of roughly 1,000 people left Tapachula with the intent to walk or hitchhike to the United States. Many cited frustrations with CBP One delays, dangerous conditions in southern Mexico, and lack of jobs in the cities where they have been forced to wait for months,” notes Immigration Impact, adding, “The caravan, along with a second one which left the week before, is unlikely to make it to the U.S. border. Since 2019, every caravan to set out toward the United States has been broken up by Mexican officials, often within a matter of days.”
🇺🇸 United States
“Why aren’t there more Russian migrants at the border? What the data tells us” (Niskanen Center)
Borders and Enforcement
🌎 Regional
Milenio warns that Venezuelan organized crime group Tren de Aragua has been spotted cooperating with Mexican organized crime groups in migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and sex trafficking in Mexico and around the US-Mexico border. (see last week’s AMB for more on fears of Tren de Aragua and associated discrimination in the Americas)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
A proposed bill would punish migrants who illegally re-enter the Dominican Republic with fines and/or jail time, escalating the consequences for each further illegal re-entry following deportation. (Listin Diario)
🇺🇸 United States
“At a rally in Arizona, Trump announced a plan to hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents, report Meg Kinnard and Nicholas Riccardi of the Associated Press. Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times analyzes how Trump’s border and immigration proposals, including this one, lack detail as to how he’d carry them out,” explains National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily.
More on Migration
🇲🇽 Mexico
“A growing number of U.S. born children of Mexican immigrants are claiming dual citizenship in the country their parents left — New York Times.” (via Latin America Daily Briefing)