Argentina's Macri orders establishment of a detention center for undocumented immigrants. [View all]

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The government of Argentine President Mauricio Macri signed an agreement with the City of Buenos Aires - whose mayor belongs to the same right-wing party - to create the first migrant detention center in the country.

The agreement, signed on August 19 by the National Migrations Director, Horacio García; the Minister of National Security, Patricia Bullrich; and her Buenos Aires counterpart, Martín Ocampo, envisaged the transfer of a municipal court archive building in Buenos Aires "for the housing of people infringing Law 25.871 and its complementary regulations." The four-year agreement will take effect on September 1.

The proposed detention center, to be used to "combat illegal immigration," was condemned by Amnesty International, Argentine human rights organizations, and foreign diplomatic delegations, all of whom expressed concern over the potential for abuses at such a facility.

Human rights lawyers believe the law being cited in the agreement - the National Immigration Law of 2004 - is being deliberately misinterpreted by the right-wing Macri administration. Diego Morales, director of legal defense services for Argentina's most prominent human rights organization - CELS - pointed out that Law 25.871 only enables the detention of migrants for very specific violations (mostly felonies) and allows deportations only with a court order. It also protects undocumented immigrants by mandating that authorities assist any law-abiding undocumented immigrant in applying for permanent resident status if so desired.

Signed by former President Néstor Kirchner, the 2004 law provided for the legalization of over 675,000 undocumented immigrants. "It abandoned the concept of combating immigration, and is considered a model internationally," Morales added.

While those who commit felonies are already subject to detention and deportation under the 2004 law, this would in effect be the first prison for migrants in the country. The 40,000 ft² facility, moreover, would be located in a largely residential neighborhood - raising the possibility that besides being a potential human rights and immigration law violation, its existence could also be contested as a gross zoning violation in what is already an economically-distressed working class neighborhood.

The National Migrations Directorate (DNM) conducted over 8,000 inspections from January through July and scrutinized 12,700 individuals - of which only 1,600 were undocumented immigrants.

Many of Argentina's undocumented are from neighboring Bolivia. The former Ambassador to Bolivia, Ariel Basteiro, denounced the proposal as an attempt "to break all ties with the neighboring countries of the region." The Macri administration, he added, "is having a servile attitude toward the United States in hopes that visa requirements (for Argentines visiting the U.S.) be lifted, while jailing fellow Latin Americans."

Over 500 academics, lawyers, and activists created a petition on change.org titled "No to the creation of detention centers for immigrants in Argentina." Argentina, they warned, had shifted "from a paradigm focused on the human rights of migrants to one based on expulsion by the state, which now sees migration as a problem of national security and public order."

Amnesty International also condemned the agreement for its "use of detention as a form of punishment or deterrence, rather than addressing the root causes of irregular immigration." If implemented it would, they said, be "a turning point in Argentina's immigration policy."

Macri was narrowly elected last November, and had made limiting immigration one of his central campaign themes. Critics charge that Macri, whose austerity policies are widely blamed for a doubling in inflation and a severe recession, is attempting to shore up support from his vocal right-wing base.

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