The architecture of exclusion: The global offensive against the right to migrate

Carmen Navas Reyes

From the raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at US airports to the approval of the controversial Return Regulation in the EU, the world is witnessing an ‘ICE-isation‘ of migration policies.

This ‘ICE-isation’ is characterised by the externalisation of borders, prolonged detention and the criminalisation of undocumented individuals – generating an unprecedented human rights crisis that has already resulted in fatalities and complaints filed with international bodies.

Paradoxically, this crackdown is occurring at a time when migration is more vital than ever for global financial stability.

While the global right wing is erecting walls (both physical and legal), remittance flows to countries in the Global South reached $905bn in 2024, far exceeding foreign direct investment in many of these countries.

We are facing a paradox: the economies of many nations depend on the efforts of migrants. Yet global politics is bent on stripping them of their dignity.

Chile – setback under Kast

In Chile, President José Antonio Kast has fulfilled one of his most aggressive campaign promises: halting the regularisation of 182,000 immigrants. This process, initiated by former President Gabriel Boric, had sought to integrate individuals who had already met state requirements, including the submission of biometric data and residential addresses.

The Migrant Action Movement warns of the danger of this ‘failed registration’ policy, through which thousands of people are now fully identified and traceable by a government that has vowed to expel them.

It also points out that, despite the new official narrative linking migration to chaos, economic reality contradicts this discourse: the migrant population contributes 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) to the Chilean economy.

Argentina and Milei’s decree

In May 2025, Javier Milei’s Argentine government put an end to Argentina’s tradition of welcoming migrants through a Decree of Necessity and Urgency that restricts foreigners’ access to essential public services such as healthcare and education, with dangerous discrimination lurking in the background.

By using this decree, Milei sidestepped legislative debate to impose a policy of systematic suspicion.

Argentina, a country built on migratory flows, now sees the right to healthcare transformed into a privilege contingent on perfect documentation, shattering the model that defined the nation for decades.

Cecot exposes El Salvador’s role

Eighteen of the 250 Venezuelans who were illegally detained at the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot) have filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

They were transferred without trial from migrant detention centres in the US to Cecot, alongside alleged highly dangerous gang members of Salvadoran origin, until their release and repatriation to Venezuela in July 2025.

This, moreover, was not an acknowledgment of a legal error, but rather the result of diplomatic negotiations between the administrations of Nicolás Maduro and Donald Trump, without the participation of the government of El Salvador, whose actions reinforce the argument that a system has emerged that has turned the persecution of migration into a business, in which countries receive resources and political legitimacy in exchange for managing the extraterritorial incarceration of migrants, turning human mobility into a means of geopolitical bargaining.

Mexico and ICE’s lethality

Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, has drawn a red line against ICE’s institutional violence.

The Mexican government announced it will bring before the IACHR the cases of Mexican nationals who have died in custody or during operations, which now total 14 victims.

Despite constant diplomatic complaints, the US State Department’s responses have been evasive. Hardline rhetoric has permeated operational forces, resulting in procedures where the migrant’s life is secondary to the goal of detention.

Mexico seeks to ensure these operations are no longer viewed as internal security actions but are instead judged as systematic human rights violations.

Europe and ‘Return Regulation’

In Europe, the then most right-wing Parliament in history ratified the Return Regulation, a set of rules that represents a capitulation of European liberal values.

The key points are:

Return hubs: Outsourcing of detention to non-EU countries with opaque oversight.

24-month detentions: Extension of detention for undocumented individuals for up to two years.

Withdrawal of rights: Elimination of social benefits and lifetime entry bans.

Alliances with governments accused of human rights violations: Deportations will be negotiated with countries under regimes such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Organisations such as the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (Picum) warn of the creation of “legal black holes”, the incorporation of practices like mass raids and deportations that characterise Trump’s ICE-style approach, justified by the fact that only 20% of removal orders are actually carried out.

The collapse in the US

In March 2026, the country faced a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) due to budget disputes over immigration enforcement.

This has led to ICE agents taking over security at airports following the resignation of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. ICE now acts as the first point of contact for any traveller, blurring the line between airport security and ethnic-racial persecution.

The ignored reality

While the global right promotes hostility, data from 2024 reveals an inescapable economic reality. Remittances to low and middle-income countries reached $656bn.

In countries such as Tonga (41% of GDP), Tajikistan (39%), and Nicaragua (27%), migration is one of the drivers of the economy thanks to remittances.

In the case of Mexico and India, they received $120bn and $66bn, respectively. These figures far exceed Official Development Assistance (ODA) to recipient countries.

Capitalism certainly recognises migrants’ importance and exploits them: remittances cost migrants a fee (6.4% global average) per transfer.

The landscape in the newly begun year of 2026 reveals that we are facing a profound global shift – and not for the better. The deaths of individuals during ICE operations and the EU’s new legal framework are shaping a world where human mobility is criminalised at levels never seen before.

This follows the global far right’s successes in imposing its ideology within the legal and political framework, through a strategy to make the life of migrant workers more precarious; that is, the life of those who are exploited for resources through fees on their remittances and consumption, yet are persecuted and have their rights restricted in the countries where they produce.

With regard to migration, we are facing forces that seek to bury the concept of universal human rights, just as they are doing with international law and the rules-based world order. – Globetrotter

Carmen Navas Reyes is a Venezuelan political scientist with a master’s degree in ecology for human development. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Latin American Studies at the Rómulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies Foundation (Celarg) in Venezuela. She is a member of the international advisory board of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

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