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The Regional Network of Civil Organizations on Migration

Enlaces América coordinates U.S. engagement with the Regional Network of Civil Organizations on Migration (RNCOM), a regional civil society network which meets parallel to the inter-governmental Regional Conference on Migration (RCM). The Regional Conference on Migration, formerly known as the Puebla Process, is an intergovernmental forum on migration which includes representation from all Central American countries, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada and the United States. The group was established in 1996 to improve communication on migration issues among immigration and foreign policy officials in the region and to provide a space in which they could work toward cooperative agreements. The RCM convenes an annual meeting at the vice-ministerial level, and representatives of member governments also come together throughout the year for interim technical meetings and seminars. The RCM is chaired by a rotating Secretariat. For the year 2002, Guatemala is the Secretariat. The 2002 vice-ministerial meeting took place in Antigua, Guatemala from May 29-31.

While the official government sessions are closed to outsiders, non-governmental actors have been involved in the RCM process since it was initiated. Conscious of the human rights and labor rights at risk in immigration enforcement activities, non-governmental organization leaders in the region realized that, with the formation of the intergovernmental Puebla Group (as the RCM was previously known), their advocacy had to develop a regional dimension as well. At the initial meeting of the Regional Conference on Migration in Puebla, Mexico, in March 1996, thirty representatives of Mexican and U.S. civil society organizations convened in a parallel fashion to governmental representatives to discuss their concerns regarding regional human rights protection for migrants.

Since then, the regional civil society network has evolved, consolidating its internal structure and formalizing its relationship to the RCM. The RNCOM is now the officially recognized interlocutor between civil society organizations and the RCM, and has evolved into a proactive coalition with a regional human rights agenda of its own. Membership and participation in the RNCOM is coordinated by national-level coalitions of civil society organizations concerned with migration in all RCM-member countries.

Enlaces America works to facilitate information-sharing between U.S.-based organizations interested in regional migration issues and the rest of the RNCOM. Enlaces sponsors bi-annual briefings for interested U.S. NGOs regarding regional migration concerns. To read the report from an October 2002 briefing, click here.

To read an overview of the evolution of the RNCOM from 1996 to 2002, click here.

The RNCOM recently emerged from a period of transition and a planning process. To read a report on the February 2003 RNCOM planning meeting, click here.

The Hemispheric Conference on International Migration: Human Rights and the Trafficking in Persons in the Americas took place on November 20-22, 2002, in Santiago, Chile. The conference was organized by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and by the International Organization on Migration (IOM). Organizations from throughout the hemipshere concerned with migrants' rights met parallel to the governmental conference with the aim of strengthening civil society's ability to defend and promote the human rights of migrants and their families. To read a translated version of declaration the civil society forum presented to the governments, click here. To read a report prepared by Enlaces América on the civil society forum, click here.

The English website for the inter-governmental Regional Conference on Migration at http://www.rcmvs.org. The Spanish website is at http://www.crmsv.org.

To read the report of the May 2002 RNCOM gathering, which took place parallel to the VII Regional Conference on Migration (RCM) Vice-Ministerial meeting in Antigua, Guatemala, click here. For other RNCOM documents, please visit our publications page.