Americas Migration Brief - October 7, 2024
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
A CALP Network and REACH report explores the use of money transfer programs to support migrants in Ecuador and Peru, finding that programs have “proven to be viable and effective in meeting priority needs such as food, housing, and transportation.” However, their efficacy and general migrant integration are impacted by various dynamics, including the importance of support from local leadership.
A similar evaluation study focused on migrants in Colombia by Action Against Hunger, the Danish Refugee Council, and the Norwegian Refugee Council found that “unconditional cash transfers granted for six months have generated significant improvements in the quality of life of the most vulnerable beneficiaries.” (RCN Radio)
🇵🇦 Panama
“The Government of Panama has issued a decree that allows Venezuelans with expired passports to use this document for various internal procedures for six months,” reports EFE.
🇨🇴 Colombia
Colombia’s Ministry of Health has allocated $327 billion pesos (~78 million USD) for hospitals across the country providing medical care to migrants, reports RCN Radio.
🇬🇾 Guyana
“With an estimated 28,000 to 40,000 Venezuelan migrants residing in Guyana, the Ministry of Labour is facilitating their transition into the legal economy. This involves addressing key issues such as training and development, health and safety opportunities and education on local labour laws,” says Kaieteur News.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago
An op-ed by Jarrel De Matas at Sunday Express calls for Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Education to develop a migrant child education plan and to establish “guidelines for the teaching of pragmatic language skills (PLS) for migrant children” with the aim of furthering their integration in the long term.
🇨🇱 Chile
Centro de Políticas Migratorias’ Diego Chaparro writes at El Mostrador about the challenges migrant children face in getting a quality education in Chile, noting that “foreign students are concentrated in public establishments with high levels of vulnerability and have lower academic performance, a lower monthly attendance rate at all educational levels, and a higher dropout rate than their Chilean peers.”
🇺🇸 United States
“The United States government will not allow people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who arrived in the country under a program known as “humanitarian parole” to extend their immigration benefits for more than two years,” reports EFE. “Instead, migrants who have come to the U.S. under the policy will be directed to try to obtain legal status through other immigration programs, leave the country or face deportation proceedings,” notes CBS, highlighting access to permanent status for Cubans through the Cuban Adjustment Act and access to TPS for certain Haitians and Venezuelans.
Ilya Somin points out at Reason that the Biden administration did “extend the parole period for Afghan and Ukrainian participants in similar parole programs,” arguing, “The case for CHNV participants is equally compelling.”
Dara Lind highlights at Immigration Impact the precarity of legal status for Haitian migrants (and others) with status in the US through Temporary Protected Status (TPS): “more than seven years after the Trump administration tried to end TPS for Haiti, Haitians are still dependent on the decisions of presidential administrations every 24 months to retain their ability to live in the United States… they have no idea what their futures in the United States will hold, and no ability to control their fates.”
“Protection from deportation may expire for up to 2.7 million people within the next two years,” including beneficiaries of TPS, DACA, and humanitarian parole, per an NPAF policy brief.
Despite increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric among some politicians, a study of immigration rhetoric and electoral results found that “there was limited success for anti-immigrant campaigns in the 2022 midterm elections,” explains AULA Blog.
“New research discussed in a recent WSJ article provides data-driven insights that challenge outdated assumptions. It shows that immigrants—whether skilled workers or those filling essential roles—are contributing positively to public finances in ways many may not expect,” notes Emerson Collective’s Immigration Update.
The Washington Post highlights evidence that debunks claims that immigrants are to blame for housing prices.
“The arrival of more than half a million school-age children since 2022 has strained school budgets and left teachers grappling with language barriers,” reports Reuters. The investigation includes findings from a (non-representative) survey of some school districts.
🇨🇦 Canada
Immigrant entrepreneurs and workers face hurdles in Canada, reports Financial Post: “A new report from the financial technology company Square found that 65 per cent of newcomer entrepreneurs ran into roadblocks when it came to having their skills and experiences recognized in Canada, while 27 per cent turned to business ownership after struggling to find a job.”
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇲🇽 Mexico
“Mexican authorities arrested soldiers who were part of a patrol that opened fire on a pickup truck killing six migrants,” reports Reuters. A further 10 migrants had been injured in the shooting, which took place in southern Mexico near the border with Guatemala last Tuesday.
IOM, UNHCR, civil society, and others expressed concern surrounding the shooting. Colectivo de Monitoreo Frontera Sur has called for impartial investigations, additionally critiquing the Mexican government’s migration policy and arguing that the securitized approach creates a “context of violence.” (Proceso, Milenio, El Universal, Desinformémonos)
🇭🇹 Haiti
“Over 700,000 people, more than half of whom are children, are now internally displaced across Haiti,” reports IOM, noting a 22% increase in the population since June. (see full IOM report here)
“Nearly 6,300 people have fled their homes in the aftermath of an attack in central Haiti by heavily armed gang members that killed at least 70 people,” reports Washington Post.
Smugglers abandoned 64 Haitian migrants on an uninhabited island west of Puerto Rico, the third such event in recent weeks, per AP. US officials found and detained the migrants.
“Haiti’s school year started yesterday — but the country’s education system is broken: over a hundred thousand children are displaced, schools around the country are occupied by people without homes, 30 percent of Haiti’s teachers have migrated.” (Miami Herald; via Latin America Daily Briefing)
🇯🇲 Jamaica
Following the arrival by boat of 20 Haitian migrants in Jamaica on Saturday, some advocates are calling for the government to assess the group “to determine whether they can receive refugee status or asylum.” (Observer)
🇦🇼 Aruba
“Venezuelan refugees in Aruba are the victims of a lack of specific asylum legislation on the island. The post-electoral crisis in Venezuela shows the urgency and need for asylum laws that both protect Venezuelans fleeing the human rights crisis in their country and facilitate and ensure their human rights on Aruba upon arrival,” says an Amnesty International commentary for a new report on access to protection for the estimated 17,000 Venezuelans in Aruba.
Concerns also include conditions in immigration detention for irregular migrants and questions surrounding due process because of language barriers, per Crónicas del Caribe.
🇬🇾 Guyana
Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network reports on sexual violence in Guyana, noting, “Rape of migrant women, many of whom have fled instability in neighboring Venezuela, makes up a significant number of cases before the court.” Discrimination plays a role in migrants’ vulnerability: “C explained that it was difficult to get the police to take her report. ‘She is seen as a sex worker, you know, because she is Spanish,’ the friend said. ‘Now there is no report and nothing will ever happen.’”
🇺🇸 United States
“President Biden's administration on Monday announced new regulations to shore up the partial asylum ban it enacted at the U.S. southern border in June, likely extending the strict immigration policy indefinitely, through the presidential election and beyond,” reports CBS.
UNHCR has expressed concern, as have numerous civil society organizations. (see, for example, Human Rights Watch and Church World Service)
The Biden administration has set the 2025 Fiscal Year refugee target at 125,000, including 35,000-50,000 slots for Latin America and the Caribbean. 100,034 refugees were admitted in FY 2024, notes Global Refuge.
Niskanen Center highlights the Biden administration's efforts to rebuild the refugee resettlement program.
A National Immigration Justice Center policy brief explores abuses in the US immigration detention system. Findings include 23 deaths in ICE custody under the Biden administration, increasing cases of solitary confinement, and a “profit-driven expansion” with increasing detentions in for-profit detention centers.
The Guardian highlights abuses and legal violations in the H-2A temporary agricultural work program, including forced meal programs that are “inedible” and expensive.
WOLA calls for five principles to center US migration policy: human rights and accountability, upholding the right to asylum, comprehensive immigration reform, addressing root causes, and regional cooperation and integration.
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, including fact-checking immigration-related claims from the vice presidential debate last Tuesday.
🇨🇦 Canada
“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is investing more than $14.3 million to provide more settlement services in the three Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba,” reports Immigration.ca.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
An op-ed at Hoy calls for the Dominican Republic to avoid joining the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, currently signed by 22 countries in the hemisphere. (see last week’s AMB on LA Declaration updates)
Labor Migration
🇨🇦 Canada
Canadian Senator Ratna Omidvar writes at The Globe and Mail, “The federal government’s recent announcement of caps on some temporary foreign workers is merely tinkering at the edges. It falls short of addressing the structural reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, or TFWP, that are urgently needed… A more comprehensive strategy is essential – one that considers the diverse needs of industries, the rights and well-being of workers and the long-term economic implications of our immigration policies. Without such an approach, we risk creating more problems than we solve.”
“Vast majority of residents want to keep Canada’s door open for immigrants but with limits: CityNews poll” (CityNews)
🇺🇸 United States
Amid shortages in healthcare workers, Congress should pass the bipartisan Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, says a Boston Globe editorial. The bill “would allow 25,000 foreign-trained nurses into the United States is a common-sense step that should be an easy political lift. The bill doesn’t increase the number of visas that would be authorized; it lets immigrants use visas that were previously authorized by Congress but went unused for administrative reasons (for example, paperwork wasn’t processed by the end of the fiscal year). The bill also includes 15,000 green cards for doctors, which would likely be used to give permanent residency to foreign-trained doctors already practicing in the US.”
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
In the Darien Gap, the Panamanian government “has started to create controlled migration routes to limit the environmental impact of migration to specific areas, while also implementing reforestation, waste pick up, and rural development projects,” reports InSight Crime.
“In a Wilson Center interview, journalist Molly O’Toole explored how global migration patterns are transforming due to U.S. policies, economic conditions, and environmental crises. That is the overarching subject of O’Toole’s forthcoming book The Route, which traces migration from Brazil to the U.S.-Mexico border. “It’s very difficult to think of a policy that the U.S. could conceive of that could stop people who are willing to die in order to make it,” she pointed out.” (via Daily Border Links)
🇬🇹 Guatemala
“U.S. anti-corruption sanctions against Russian-backed nickel mines in Guatemala plunged thousands of people into joblessness—leading some to then migrate toward the United States, the Washington Post reports,” notes Catherine Osborn at Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
Borders and Enforcement
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
“The Dominican Republic announced Wednesday that it would start massive deportations of Haitians living illegally in the country, expelling up to 10,000 of them a week,” reports AP, noting that at least 67,000 were deported in the first half of 2024. The initiative is part of a seven-point agreement by the National Security and Defense Council, including strengthening border surveillance and more funding for the General Directorate of Migration, per Haiti Libre.
“With the appointment of Vice Admiral Luis Rafael Lee Ballester as Director General of Migration, President Luis Abinader has delegated to the Armed Forces the management of illegal immigration and the repatriation of foreigners in an irregular situation in the Dominican Republic,” notes Acento.
“The General Directorate of Migration (DGM) detained 1,100 Haitians from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon this Friday,” reports Diario Libre, adding that the DGM is now reviewing the group, as some migrants may be undergoing individual regularization processes. “During the operation, members of the DGM were seen detaining people solely for their skin color, asking them for documentation and, if they did not have it or it had expired, they were searched and placed in (zipties) and put on a van or motorcycle that took them to the mobile prison,” says El Nacional.
“Haiti called on the Dominican Republic on Thursday to respect the rights of Haitian migrants,” reports EFE
🇺🇸 United States
“About 11 million undocumented immigrants lived in the United States as of 2022… An additional 2.3 million removable immigrants were released into the United States between January 2023 and April 2024 and would also be targeted in any mass deportation operation. A one-time operation to deport these immigrants would cost at least $315 billion,” according to an American Immigration Council report. The report also breaks down the potential negative impacts on the US economy, noting, “Overall, mass deportation would lead to a loss of 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent of annual U.S. GDP… The negative impact would be the most significant in California, Texas, and Florida.”
Policies to increase deportations “are often justified by three main arguments: that they will deter future irregular migration, enhance public safety, and improve socioeconomic outcomes for the native-born population,” notes a Migration Information Source article, explaining that deportations are not particularly effective at addressing these issues, particularly in the long-term.
🇬🇹 Guatemala
“Guatemalan authorities on Tuesday dismantled a criminal network, with police among its ranks, responsible for smuggling migrants to the United States,” reports AFP.
🇻🇬 British Virgin Islands
“BVI to remove visas requirement for Guyanese travellers” (Loop)
More on Migration
🇨🇺 Cuba
Citing El Toque, CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief highlights the impacts of large-scale emigration on Cuba: “One result is that the elderly, who are often dependent on family support, are left unattended in very vulnerable conditions. This also impacts the accelerated aging of the Cuban population, while the loss of the labor force aggravates yet further the challenges the island faces.”