South American Immigrants in the United States
APRIL 11, 2024
SPOTLIGHT
By Julian Montalvo and Jeanne Batalova
South American immigration to the United States has been on the rise, growing three times as fast as overall U.S. immigration from 2000 to 2022, although the nearly 4 million South Americans comprised just 9 percent of all 46.2 million U.S.-based immigrants as of 2022. South Americans first began immigrating to the United States during the Cold War era, when countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Colombia experienced political upheaval, armed conflict, and economic instability. Since then, immigration from the region has continued to be driven by a mix of political, social, and economic crises, exemplified by a massive exodus of Venezuelans since conditions in their country began deteriorating in 2015.
Recently, encounters of South Americans arriving without authorization at the U.S.-Mexico border have dramatically increased, corresponding with new instability in origin countries. In fiscal year (FY) 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered Venezuelans 266,000 times at the southwest border, a more than fivefold increase over the 49,000 encounters in FY 2021 (many of these occurred at official ports of entry, often after migrants had scheduled an appointment through the CBP One app). Encounters with Colombians, while fewer, increased at an even faster rate (nearly 26-fold), from about 6,000 in FY 2021 to 160,000 in FY 2023.
In response, the U.S. government has used immigration parole programs to provide legal pathways for some South Americans and others while stepping up returns of those arriving irregularly. Humanitarian parole, a tool increasingly used by the Biden administration, allows recipients to legally enter the United States but provides only temporary residency and no pathway to citizenship. By the end of February 2024, 91,000 Venezuelans had arrived under a specific parole program for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Since 2023, Colombians and Ecuadorians (along with nationals of some Central American and Caribbean countries) have been eligible for family reunification parole programs that allow people who have been approved for a family-based green card to enter and remain in the United States while they await their visa.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/south-american-immigrants-united-states
