Improving the defence of migrants and refugees

The Inter-American Network for the Defence of Persons in the Context of Mobility has been formally established to facilitate the exchange of legislation, jurisprudence, services and data, between countries, in order to improve the defence of migrants and refugees. 

The improved exchange of information between public defender’s offices is intended to respond to the impact that the pandemic has caused on migration and human mobility in the Latin American region, since migrant and refugee vulnerabilities, and especially those to do with women, boys and girls, have worsened. 

This situation reveals the importance of having a regional assistance network in aspects such as early advice to potential beneficiaries of international protection and legal guidance in order to detect the regular routes of entry and stay, as well as the dissemination of the best practices in legal assistance. For this reason, the AIDEF, coordinated by the Argentinian National Public Defender’s Office, with the support of EUROsociAL+ and under the impetus of the Public Defender’s Office of the Union of Brazil and the Chilean Public Criminal Defender’s Office, has worked to create this network over the last two years. Furthermore, an action protocol has been approved for requesting information between the region’s Public Defenders’ Offices in cases in which migrants and refugees are defended. 

As the rapporteur on the Human Rights of migrants, Felipe González, pointed out, COVID has caused delays in immigration and asylum procedures. Border closures, lockdowns, restrictions on freedom of movement and other emergency measures, coupled with the pre-existing vulnerabilities of migrants, such as lack of access to health care and other essential services, poor living conditions and precarious and unsafe working conditions, as well as discrimination, racism and xenophobia, “have had a negative impact on migrants’ ability to exercise their rights and have exacerbated existing inequalities“, he stresses. 

The general coordinator of AIDEF and the National Public Defender of Argentina, Stella Maris, explained that the Network “will serve to share the best regional practices, defence strategies, development of strategic litigation for emblematic cases and relevant jurisprudence”. 

“It is very good news that the possibility of participation has been given to other institutions, associations, international organisations responsible for promoting and protecting the human rights of people in the context of human mobility as observers or collaborators in this Network because this will allow for joint efforts and better coordination at the international level”, pointed out Anna Terrón, the director of FIIAPP, co-manager of the European EUROsociAL+ project. 

“I am sure that this Network can substantially change the management of migratory flows in the region and will be a milestone in achieving a transforming change that truly links migration and development and that implies recognition for these people, whatever their immigration status, as legal subjects” said Marc Litvine, Section Head of the European Commission’s General Directorate for International Associations.