Argentina has said it will tighten its historically loose migration rules, as libertarian president Javier Milei cuts costs and deepens his political alignment with hard-right leaders in the United States and Europe.
Argentina will ban people convicted of crimes from entering, rapidly deport those who commit crimes inside the country, set financial requirements for residency and charge migrants to access public healthcare and education, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni told reporters.
“We have for a while had an immigration regime that invites chaos and abuse,” Adorni said on Wednesday, citing heavy spending on public services for foreigners. “It’s time to honour our history and make Argentina great again.”
The reforms, while less extreme than hardline migration policies implemented by Milei’s ally US president Donald Trump, are a departure for Argentina. The nation is largely descended from immigrants and migration has rarely been a big political issue, with many paths to legal residency and relatively lax migration enforcement.
It reflects Milei’s blending of his economic mandate to end Argentina’s chronic overspending with a rightwing social agenda. The president has previously closed government departments tasked with tackling gender and racial discrimination, which he said had spent large budgets with limited results.
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in January, the libertarian economist said “woke ideology” was a “cancer that must be removed”.
Juan Cruz Díaz, managing director of Latin America advisory Cefeidas Group, said Adorni’s announcement aimed to appeal to conservative voters in Buenos Aires in advance of Sunday’s local elections, in which Adorni is the main candidate for Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party.
“La Libertad Avanza is trying to beat centre-right parties for dominance of the rightwing vote,” Cruz Díaz said.
“The city is probably where concern about migrants flooding public services is most pronounced in Argentina.
“The government’s angle is more economic than xenophobic ... the latter is not a dominant part of the national debate in Argentina.”
Adorni said that eight public hospitals nationwide had jointly spent 114 billion pesos (€90 million) on treating foreigners in 2024.
He said that the new healthcare charges would put an end to “health tourism”, in which foreigners enter Argentina to receive free healthcare before returning home, a big complaint of rightwing leaders in the country’s northern provinces bordering Bolivia and Paraguay.
The reforms, set to be implemented through a presidential decree in the coming days, include new requirements for receiving Argentinian citizenship, including spending two years inside the country uninterrupted. − The Financial Times
