Immigration Wasn’t an Issue in Argentina. Until It Became One.

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Hundreds of law enforcement agents descended on shops, cafes and malls, demanding documents, checking legal statuses and detaining people in new sweeping raids conducted by Argentine authorities who have taken a tougher stance on immigration.

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But under President Javier Milei, a right-wing libertarian, the government is joining a global trend cracking down on immigration, and is publicizing its shift with an aggressive enforcement messaging similar to that employed by the Trump administration.

Critics call it an unnecessary and dangerous political gimmick meant to emulate President Trump and other right-wing leaders, but supporters say Mr. Milei is taking necessary measures to overhaul an immigration policy that had long been too lax.

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More than two million foreign nationals live legally in Argentina, accounting for roughly 5 percent of the population, according to government data. There are no public figures on the number of undocumented migrants living in Argentina because a lack of political focus and easy access to legalization have largely kept the issue off the radar.

Mr. Milei has introduced tougher immigration measures, including imposing stricter criteria for migrants to earn permanent residency and making it easier for the government to deport those accused of committing crimes. The government shifted the role of overseeing immigration from the interior to the security ministry, effectively making migration a law enforcement issue with an emphasis on border control.

The Milei administration has claimed — without providing any evidence — that the tens of thousands of South Americans deported by the Trump administration could fuel an influx of illegal migrants in Argentina.

Argentina deported 620 immigrants in 2024, an about 40 percent increase from the previous year. In January, Ms. Monteoliva announced that nearly 5,000 people had been “expelled, denied entry or extradited” during the previous two months. “RECORD NUMBER OF FOREIGNERS DENIED ENTRY AND DEPORTED,” she wrote on X. (Ms. Monteoliva declined to be interviewed for this article.)

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In a country geographically removed from most global crises, Argentina has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and even became an unlikely hub for gay Russian exiles.

Polls show that anti-immigration sentiment is much lower in Argentina than in most of Latin America, where it has been on the rise. An Ipsos poll in 2025 found that just 4 percent of respondents in Argentina cited immigration control among their top three concerns, much lower than the 17 percent figure globally.

Still, something is changing.

Milei government officials argue that Argentina’s immigration system does not work and that too many immigrants were living in the country without legal migration status. The cost of treating them in public hospitals and educating them in schools, they say, had helped bloat the government’s budget.

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