RSS - Building a Regional Migration System
Subscribe to our Building a Regional Migration System RSS feed using your favorite RSS reader: Subscribe 
Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have fallen to lows not seen since the 1960s. But can this trend continue amid a sharp policy shift to a deterrence-focused approach, setting aside a carrot-and-stick migration management strategy? This short read looks at the evidence.
No country has been more critical to U.S. border enforcement than Mexico, with Mexican policies central to reductions in irregular border arrivals witnessed since the start of 2024. As the United States and Mexico navigate the next chapter in their long-standing engagement on migration issues, this policy brief provides an account of how migration patterns and policy responses changed in recent years and the challenges ahead.
La administración Trump amenaza con imponer aranceles a México para lograr sus objetivos de gestión migratoria, como lo hizo en 2019. Sin embargo, el panorama es muy diferente en 2025. La cooperación mexicana para el control migratorio alcanza niveles mucho más altos que en 2019, lo que le otorga mayor influencia que antes. Este Foco analítico sostiene que las negociaciones que reconozcan los objetivos y las capacidades de ambos países son esenciales para lograr resultados efectivos.
The Trump administration is threatening tariffs on Mexico to achieve migration management aims, as it did in 2019. The landscape is far different in 2025, though. Mexican cooperation is at far higher levels than in 2019 and Mexico is essential to many of the Trump border goals—giving it greater leverage than before. Negotiations that recognize both countries' goals, capacities, and legal frameworks are essential to effective outcomes, this short read argues.
The Biden administration's ambitious migration management strategy, which combined increased regional cooperation and expanded lawful pathways with a more orderly system for border arrivals, eventually led to a significant drop in irregular migration to the U.S.-Mexico border. The strategy holds promise for governments in Europe also tackling mixed migration flows—however sequencing matters, among other lessons.
While unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have plummeted in 2024, improving on these results requires immigration strategies that go far beyond the border. A new architecture for managing migration implemented over the past three years is fragile but holds promise and represents a necessary direction, this commentary argues.
Policymakers across the Americas are weighing whether and how to expand legal migration pathways as alternatives to unauthorized movement. But what pathways already exist, and how widely are they used? This fact sheet provides an overview of available pathways to the United States for migrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and data on the changing use of these channels.
Los países a través de las Américas intentan gestionar eficazmente la migración. La meta es facilitar el movimiento a beneficio de las sociedades receptoras, los migrantes y sus países de origen y a la vez disuadir las llegadas irregulares. Pero como explora este informe, crear vías legales que sean alternatives reales a la migración irregular requerirá un esfuerzo concertado.
Countries across the Americas are grappling with how to effectively manage migration. The aim is to facilitate movement in a way that benefits receiving societies, migrants, and their origin countries, while discouraging irregular arrivals. But creating legal pathways that represent real alternatives to irregular migration remains a challenge and will require concerted effort, as this report explores.
The U.S. immigration enforcement system increasingly depends on other countries to help halt irregular movements through the Americas and accept the return of unauthorized migrants. Foreign governments play a crucial and yet underappreciated role in migration management, and can either aid or frustrate U.S. border-control aims, as this article explores.
All eyes are on the U.S.-Mexico border, where shifting migration trends and record migrant arrivals have stretched the U.S. border management system beyond its capabilities. As the Biden administration continues to implement its new regime of incentives for orderly arrivals and disincentives for unauthorized crossings, this report analyzes the rapidly changing policy and migration realities and outlines recommendations for a more effective, durable system of border control.
Facing a dramatically different reality arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with the end of a pandemic-era policy that resulted in more than 3 million expulsions, the Biden administration unveiled a policy vision that marries expanded legal pathways with stiff consequences for those seeking to enter without authorization. The strategy can succeed, but speedier while still fair border asylum decisionmaking must be an essential component, this commentary argues.
How are U.S. border operations and policies evolving at the U.S.-Mexico border to address rising and diversifying flows? And what is driving increasing immigration from across Latin America, the Caribbean, and beyond? MPI President Andrew Selee speaks with two colleagues who traveled from one end of the nearly 2,000-mile boundary to the other, touring U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities and interviewing U.S. and Mexican officials, NGO leaders, and others.
Los titulares enfocados en la cifra récord de 2,4 millones de migrantes encontrados en la frontera México-Estados Unidos durante el año fiscal 2022 encubren la historia más importante: Los flujos migratorios se han diversificado rápidamente más allá de México y el norte Centroamérica, y como resultado, las políticas de control migratorio son incongruentes con la realidad de hoy. Esto demuestra la evidente necesitad de nuevos enfoques regionales, argumenta este comentario.
Headlines focusing on the record-breaking nature of the 2.4 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022 overlook the much bigger story: Migrant and asylum seeker flows have rapidly diversified beyond Mexico and northern Central America and as a result, U.S. enforcement policies are misaligned. Today's reality sharply underscores the need for new regional approaches, this commentary argues.
La Declaración de Los Ángeles sobre Migración y Protección, firmada por los líderes de los países del hemisferio occidental al concluirse la Cumbre de las Américas, supone un importante paso progresivo en la creación de un lenguaje común y un coherente conjunto de ideas para gestionar, de forma cooperativa, los flujos migratorios en las Américas, una región que ha sido testigo de una gran movilidad en años recientes.
La migración irregular desde El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras se ha convertido en una de las principales características del panorama migratorio en Centroamérica y Norteamérica, pero existen pocas vías legales para los centroamericanos que se ven presionados a emigrar. Este informe explora cómo Canadá, México y Costa Rica podrían utilizar los programas de trabajo temporal existentes para ampliar las opciones de migración legal.
Irregular migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras has become a dominant feature of the migration landscape in Central and North America, yet few legal pathways exist for Central Americans facing pressure to emigrate. This report explores how Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica could use existing temporary worker programs to expand legal migration options while also helping fill their labor shortages.
Este seminario web, que presenta el lanzamiento de un informe, examina el potencial de Canadá, México y Costa Rica para expandir los programas de trabajadores temporales para los centroamericanos, ofreciendo un medio importante para convertir algunos flujos irregulares en flujos legales.
This webinar, featuring the release of a report, examines the potential for Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica to expand temporary worker programs for Central Americans, offering an important means to convert some irregular flows into legal ones.