Americas Migration Brief - September 23, 2024
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Table of Contents
Integration and Development
🌎 Regional
A series of ILO reports explore the integration of Venezuelan migrant women in Argentina, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.
🇨🇴 Colombia
Colombia’s Centro Intégrate one-stop-shops for migrant integration have provided support to over 200,000 individuals, including nearly 400,000 distinct services provided, reports Proyecto Venezuela.
A UNDP study explores the role of migrants in local labor markets across six Colombian cities: Barranquilla, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cartagena, and Cúcuta.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
Some Venezuelans registered through the Dominican Republic’s regularization plan from 2021-2022 have expressed concerns about delays in receiving their document renewals, “claiming that their employers have withheld payments and warned them of possible dismissals or exclusion from the Social Security Treasury (TSS) due to the expiration of their cards,” per Diario Libre.
🇧🇿 Belize
Belize is looking to speed up the vetting process for some 11,000 regularizations through the country’s Amnesty program. (LoveFM)
🇵🇪 Peru
A World Development study finds that cash-based intervention payments to vulnerable Venezuelans in Peru improved their integration and boosted self-employment. The payment additionally “increases the intention to emigrate from Peru, presumably because the extra cash puts the long-term goal of returning to Venezuela or going to a third country into closer reach.”
🇨🇱 Chile
In northern Chile, “Almost half of Antofagasta’s migrant population lives in 60 or so informal settlements, or campamentos, that Colombian, Bolivian, Peruvian, and Ecuadorian migrants built on the arid hillsides surrounding the city beginning in 2014… From a demographic standpoint, Antofagasta’s predominantly migrant settlements are among the most multinational, multiethnic, and multiracial spaces in Latin America. Despite internal ethnic and racial divisions, migrant leaders, most of them women, have represented them in public as spaces of pan-Latin American unity,” explains NACLA, highlighting life in the campamentos.
🇺🇸 United States
Rust belt, deindustrializing and demographically shrinking counties that stand to benefit the most from immigration are not receiving many of the new arrivals to the US from recent years in part because of their anti-immigration rhetoric, reports Bloomberg.
“Overall, the move of immigrants to some small cities has been very beneficial, one of the best hopes these cities have for economic resurgence. But that hope will disappear if immigrants are scared off by a climate of hate,” writes Paul Krugman in an op-ed for The New York Times.
With the help of employers, DACA beneficiaries could use advance parole as a mechanism to legally leave and enter the country and “overcome immigration barriers that would have previously prevented them from adjusting to a more permanent immigration status,” says Fwd.us.
Asylum, Protection, and Human Rights
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
The #HaitianosRD collective denounced last week that a Dominican immigration official allegedly threw a Haitian migrant from a rooftop, causing serious injuries. (EFE)
🇭🇹 Haiti
Armed clashes in Cité Soleil and Delmas on September 11th (internally) displaced over 2,300, according to provisional estimates from IOM, cited by iciHaiti.
🇧🇷 Brazil
An Agência Pública series explores abuses and other concerns related to Brazil’s Operation Welcome. Articles highlight issues including spoiled food and malnutrition, violence and insecurity in the program’s shelters, and “frequent xenophobic discourse” from the military officials that run the program.
🇨🇱🇵🇪 Peru and Chile
An SJM report explores protection monitoring data from the Peru-Chile border earlier this year when the Chilean side of the border was militarized. 49% intended to remain in Peru, but 77% had no regularized status or permit to stay. 43% reported facing insecurity, with 45% of those cases characterized by government authorities victimizing the migrants (whether through extortion, assault, or other means).
🇭🇳 Honduras
Criterio highlights the trauma and other challenges faced by migrant children and returnees.
A pair of CGIAR reports explore the intersection of climate change, security, and migration in Honduras. (1, 2)
🇺🇸 United States
An IRAP report “exposes the U.S. government’s secretive practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and detaining them indefinitely in inhumane conditions at the Migrant Operations Center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.” IRAP’s press release notes, “Refugees held at the GMOC provided IRAP with firsthand accounts of inhumane conditions, mistreatment, and a complete lack of accountability at the offshore detention site, where the U.S. refuses to apply domestic standards related to immigration and detention. Conditions include undrinkable water and exposure to open sewage, inadequate schooling and medical care for children, and collective punishment of detained Cuban and Haitian refugees.”
According to internal government reports obtained by The New York Times, DHS inspectors “who visited the facility in March 2023 to look into complaints from advocacy groups, found cause for concern. They recommended that the department stop holding children at Guantánamo altogether and bring families to the United States to be processed instead.”
““The Migrant Operations Center is emblematic of a broader failure to uphold the rights of those seeking asylum at sea,” said Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, Director of Strategy and Advocacy at CEDA. “Maritime migration does not strip individuals of their rights. Asylum seekers intercepted at sea deserve the same due process protections as those arriving on U.S. soil. Our policies must reflect our values, not punish those seeking safety.”” (CEDA)
“Venezuelan migrant dies after rescuing his daughter in the Rio Grande” (El Nacional)
“The number of migrant deaths recorded by Border Patrol increased to 568 in fiscal year 2021 and then soared to nearly 900 in fiscal year 2022 — an all-time high. In fiscal years 2023 and 2024, Border Patrol recorded 704 and 560 migrant deaths respectively, according to unpublished agency data obtained by CBS News.” (CBS)
“A letter from over 75 organizations, organized by the El Paso-based Hope Border Institute, calls for improvements to the CBP One app‘s feature allowing asylum seekers to make appointments at border ports of entry. These include increasing the number of appointments, and improving protections for applicants who must spend many months in Mexico awaiting appointments. Some miss those appointments because they’ve been kidnapped by criminal organizations.” (letter; via Daily Border Links)
Bloomberg explores the US’ “broken asylum system, in which applications can take years to resolve and outcomes are often determined less by a case’s merits than by pure chance.” Growing backlogs will take years to address, Bloomberg reports, adding, “Vast inconsistencies in the rulings have left asylum seekers and their lawyers unable to gauge whether they can win their cases or not, which intensifies confusion at the border.”
“Bloomberg’s analysis suggests that, in immigration courts, asylum outcomes are powerfully swayed by variables that have little to do with the substance of the claims. Simple geography, for example, matters greatly: If an asylum-seeker’s case is assigned to the regional immigration court in New York City, the chances of a denial are about 30%, but if the case is heard in Atlanta, the chances of a denial are more than 80%.”
WOLA’s Adam Isacson highlights stories related to the US-Mexico border and human rights at the Weekly Border Update, noting, “A report from Arizona attorneys revealed a high portion of unaccompanied children reporting verbal and physical abuse while in Border Patrol custody. A FOIA result points to more than 200 CBP personnel under investigation for serious misconduct.”
🇨🇦 Canada
“Progress has been slow on a new program to resettle Uyghur refugees in Canada as an advocacy group says none have yet to arrive after nine months… Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) executive director Mehmet Tohti said the federal government told him that its aim is to bring in 500 Uyghur refugees by the end of the year, with increased numbers coming in 2025 and 2026,” reports The Hill Times. The government reportedly aims to bring in 10,000 Uygher refugees in total.
Migratory Institutions and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation
🌎 Regional
Former Biden administration official Katie Tobin writes in a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report about the development of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, tracing the story of the creation of the now 2 year old regional agreement. The paper reviews achievements—including new regularization programs, economic investment for integration, and enhanced cooperation on enforcement—as well as shortfalls—including the need for even greater investment, challenges of political will, and continued migration through the Darien Gap.
🇩🇪🇨🇴 Colombia and Germany
“Germany has agreed with Colombia to pursue a migration deal, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday, building on efforts by Berlin to bring skilled workers into Europe's biggest economy via bilateral agreements while reining in irregular migration,” reports Reuters.
“To be able to attract more skilled workers and specialists from Colombia, Germany said that it will offer training and study opportunities. The country will also immediately hire those who are urgently needed in different sectors, especially in healthcare,” adds Schengen News.
🇧🇷🇦🇷 Argentina and Brazil
A paper at Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche explores the role of street-level bureaucrats in the implementation of Mercosur’s regional free movement in the cases of Argentina and Brazil. The authors find that these officials “exercised significant levels of discretion through a set of strategies that allowed them to pursue contrasting goals in relation to policy implementation, namely fostering implementation in the case of residence while hampering it in the case of border crossings.”
Labor Migration
🇧🇷 Brazil
Brazil is developing a new immigration pathway to retain foreign-born students. “This new residence option offers graduates with a job offer an option to stay and work in Brazil immediately after graduation, whereas other typical employment visas generally require a combination of educational background and several years of work experience,” says Fragomen.
🇨🇦 Canada
Canada will cut international student permits by close to 15% next year to 437,000 total permits, as well as moving to “limit work permit eligibility for spouses of some students and temporary foreign workers,” per Reuters. (see also Fragomen)
“Quebec's Superior Court has authorized a class-action lawsuit involving temporary foreign workers who are suing the federal government over work permits that bind them to an employer,” reports CBC, noting that the lawsuit “alleges closed work permits violate Charter rights pertaining to life, liberty and security of the person, and equality.”
Canada’s open work permit system—which in certain cases grants a 12-month open work permit to “at-risk migrant workers in abusive situations”—is not a sufficient solution to exploitive labor migration, according to Dalhousie University researchers at The Conversation. “It serves as a temporary fix that often forces workers back into precarious and abusive situations,” as application processes are cumbersome and government oversight and enforcement of labor rights are lacking.
🇺🇸 United States
“Guatemala’s circular migration offers legal, safer pathways for workers to make a living in the US and support their home communities – surely a better alternative to the migration crisis in the Americas,” reports The Guardian, highlighting the benefits of H-2A and H-2B visas.
“A provider of labor market data estimates in a new report that the United States will experience a shortage of 6 million workers within the next decade, reports Alexandre Tanzi of Bloomberg… Immigrants likely will be key to countering the problem, Tanzi writes.” (via National Immigration Forum’s The Forum Daily)
Migrants in Transit
🌎 Regional
A C40 Cities and Mayors Migration Council report explores predicted climate-related migration to cities across the globe, including 5 in South America: Bogotá, Colombia and Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and São Paulo in Brazil.
Although a mass exodus has not occurred, as some had warned, Venezuelans continue to leave the country and enter Brazil and Colombia, explains TalCual.
🇺🇸 United States
MPI’s Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh and Ariel Ruiz Soto explore on LinkedIn new CBP data on border encounters from August, noting that “Migrants released with a Notice to Appear in Immigration Court accounted for just 17 percent of all irregular encounters, a record low for this administration.”
The 3% rise in irregular border crossings in August in comparison to July is “ending a stretch of five straight months of declines and signaling that flows may be leveling off,” according to AP.
Niskanen Center explores the recent growth in Indian migration to the US, noting a rise in encounters at the US-Canada border and looking at the geographic origin and languages spoken of recent arrivals.
“A group of 43 Cuban migrants arrived in the Florida Keys on Tuesday, landing at Sombrero Beach in Marathon on a wooden fishing boat,” notes CEDA’s US-Cuba News Brief, citing NBC.
Borders and Enforcement
🇺🇸 United States
Donald Trump said at an event that “he plans to deport ‘foreign Jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters’ and said he would bring back his administration’s travel ban, which barred entry to the U.S. from a list of Muslim-majority countries,” if he were elected in November. (Politico)
“Former President Trump has promised to conduct a massive deportation effort that would remove millions of people per year… Recent, rigorous economics research sheds light on the consequences of increasing the number of deportations on the U.S. labor market. This research consistently points to deportations hurting the U.S. labor market and leading to worse labor market outcomes for U.S.-born workers,” explains Brookings.
“Midwest states far from U.S.-Mexico border have spent millions to send troops there” (NPR)
More on Migration
🌎 Regional
An open-access book from CLACSO reviews labor migrant exploitation and securitization amid forced displacement across the Americas, among other topics.