Interior Enforcement Approaches in Argentina (What about a ‘human rights-based’ experience)

GARCÍA, LILA

Oxford Comparative Immigration Law Handbook

Oxford University Press

Año: 2024;

In this chapter I will firstly describe ‘the Argentinean experience’ (the laws and politics of migration started in 2004) emphasizing why such an experience is so critical to place a new starting point to deal with human mobility. Then, substantive aspects on migration regulations shall be considered (grounds for granting residencies, cancellation of residence, detention and removals; the recognition of rights, etc.) together with the enforcement and policy outcomes up to Dec. 2023. Throughout the years, such a human rights-based migration policy has experienced also some setbacks (García, 2017) and only recently it has backed ‘on the (human) right track’ (García, 2021). However, those setbacks are also lessons to learn from and that in the end, the whole experience does contribute to a worldwide regulation on human mobility, challenges included. Finally I shall emphasize the role of courts (new actor in the field) by focusing on the Argentine Supreme Court’s (hereinafter: CSJN) rulings. The perspective here is transversal, so the standards built by the judges will be provided at addressing each migration stage (enter/denial, detention, etc.). In so doing, I’ll seek to answer how the Argentinean State has balanced the ‘human right to migrate’ with the ‘sovereign power to decide whom to...stay and whom to must leave’, and how a key concept such as ‘family reunification’ standard has been developed.