The Americas

25 million forcibly displaced and stateless people¹ | 19% of global total 

¹ Please see definitions of population types on UNHCR's Refugee Data Finder website.

The Americas face multiple overlapping and growing displacement situations. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, Mexico and Haiti have all experienced further significant displacement, and in 2024, the region's forcibly displaced and stateless population is expected to reach 25 million, having almost doubled since 2018, as violence, insecurity, inequality, persecution and human rights violations go unresolved. 

UNHCR works in English, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish in the Americas, with 238 partners and over 269 partner agreements, 72% of them with local and refugee-led or IDP-led NGOs. UNHCR and its partners aim to ensure access to territory, asylum capacity, legal stay arrangements, documentation, civil registration, and inclusion in national services. Within limited resources, they will prioritize temporary shelter and other reception mechanisms, psychosocial support, legal counselling and other protection services. UNHCR will invest in trusted information platforms such as the R4V Service Mapping, the Confía en el Jaguar ("Trust the Jaguar”) information network on Facebook, and the Confía en el Tucán (“Trust the Toucan") social media campaign. 

UNHCR and partners will ramp up efforts to engage with communities, particularly children and youth, people with disabilities, survivors of gender-based violence, and LGBTIQ+ people at risk. UNHCR will expand its work with international development and financial institutions to broaden support for host governments and host community programmes that can help open or expand fiscal space for countries absorbing large numbers of refugees and migrants, and reincentivize their welcoming policies. UNHCR works with development actors and the private sector to support inclusion and integration efforts, expanded job opportunities, health, education and housing for refugees and host communities.   

In Mexico, where UNHCR has helped to match asylum-seekers’ profiles and the workforce needs of more than 500 companies, over 35,000 refugees and asylum-seekers have been employed through a relocation from southern Mexico to 11 central and northern cities with a demand for workers. In Peru, a scheme launched by UNHCR and partners to promote labour inclusion has so far recognized 15 "inclusive companies". In Brazil, the internal voluntary relocation known as interiorização is a strategy within Operation Welcome that facilitates the socioeconomic integration of Venezuelan refugees and migrants. As of September 2023, more than 114,000 Venezuelans have been relocated to some 1,000 municipalities across the entire country. 

An unprecedented 400,000 people, 63% of them Venezuelans, crossed Panama’s Darién jungle in the first nine months of 2023, an almost threefold increase on 2022, and comparable numbers are expected in 2024. Reception mechanisms, already strained, are overwhelmed. Under the Comprehensive Regional Protection and Solutions Framework (MIRPS) in Central America and Mexico, UNHCR will provide targeted support to National Action Plans, the Regional Action Plan, and regional working groups on protection and solutions. 

Although some refugees and migrants will return to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, more are expected to leave, with 7.3 million across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024. UNHCR and IOM, co-leading the Regional Inter-agency Coordination Platform and its Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, will ensure a consistent inter-agency response across 17 countries and will support the Quito Process, an intergovernmental initiative to harmonize policies in receiving countries.