One year after a Decree which tightened immigration policy and represented a huge setback in terms of regional and international human rights commitments members of civil society have raised their voices in repudiation, calling for a urgent need for rights to be considered.
The DNU was announced as a measure to deal with an alleged increase in criminal behavior associated with migrants. However, various civil society organizations, as well as specialists in the field, pointed out that these claims were based on imprecise and distorted information, and that the Migration Law already contemplated reasonable elements of national security before the modification.
«The decree is being studied since February 2017 by the Permanent Bicameral Control Commission of the DNU, without a date for the treatment in the Congress. In this context, all administrative decisions adopted since the signing of the DNU are valid. «- (quote CELS)
The result is that immigration detention in Argentina is no longer an exceptional measure, as established by international human rights law and, in practice, more people risk being deprived of their liberty for immigration reasons.
Decree 70/2017 among other changes:
Increase the maximum detention period from 30 to 60 days
Sanctions with indefinite retention those migrants who put resources before their expulsion
Allows the person to be detained at the start of an immigration procedure, even before an administrative expulsion is issued
Let family reunification be a criterion to limit unnecessary detention
In the year of the World Agreements, Argentina still has an opportunity to return to be a reference for the migration policy of the region and the world as it was for more than 10 years to address migration from a human rights perspective, including the guarantee of the right to personal freedom.