From 5–8 May 2026, governments, UN agencies, migrants, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York for the Second International Migration Review Forum (IMRF). Held every four years, the Forum is the principal global platform for reviewing implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).
For VIVAT International, the IMRF was an important opportunity to bring the experiences of migrants and communities on the ground into global policy discussions. It was also a moment to strengthen collaboration with faith-based and civil society partners and renew our commitment to walking alongside people on the move.
Putting People at the Center
Adopted in 2018, the Global Compact for Migration provides a framework for international cooperation on migration. Although not legally binding, it calls on States to protect human rights, expand safe and regular pathways, reduce the risks migrants face, and strengthen cooperation among countries of origin, transit, and destination.
The 2026 IMRF followed months of consultations, regional reviews, and civil society advocacy. Throughout the Forum, one message emerged repeatedly: migration policies must place human dignity and human rights at the center.
Speakers acknowledged progress since the first IMRF in 2022, including efforts to expand regular migration pathways, improve labor mobility, and strengthen migration data. At the same time, they raised serious concerns about continuing deaths and disappearances along migration routes, trafficking and forced labor, exploitation of migrant workers, restrictive border policies, and barriers preventing migrants from accessing essential services.
Conflict, climate change, economic inequality, demographic shifts, and political polarization continue to shape migration around the world. Participants therefore called for greater international cooperation and for migration policies that are rights-based and responsive to the particular needs of women, children, young people, and migrants in vulnerable situations.
Human Rights, Safe Pathways, and Decent Work
Human rights were at the heart of many discussions during the Forum. Representatives of civil society, faith-based organizations, national human rights institutions, and other stakeholders emphasized that protecting migrants’ rights is not an optional element of migration governance. It is its foundation.
Participants highlighted the need to address trafficking and forced labor, prevent deaths and disappearances along migration routes, protect those who provide humanitarian assistance, and close the gap between international commitments and realities on the ground.
They also called for greater access to justice, legal identity, health care, education, and other essential services, regardless of migration status. Reliable data and evidence were identified as important tools for countering misinformation and xenophobic narratives about migrants.
Discussions on regular migration pathways focused particularly on migrant workers. While some governments presented efforts to expand legal migration opportunities, trade unions, civil society groups, and faith-based organizations pointed to continuing exploitation within temporary labor programs. Participants called for stronger labor protections, opportunities for regularization, family reunification, and fair access to decent work.
Young migrants added another important perspective. They spoke about barriers to education, health care, documentation, and employment, as well as emerging risks of exploitation through digital recruitment platforms. Their interventions underscored the importance of listening directly to young people when policies affecting their lives are being developed.
Addressing the Reasons People Move
Another major theme was the relationship between migration and the conditions that compel people to leave their homes.
Poverty, inequality, violence, climate impacts, and lack of access to essential services continue to push individuals and families to migrate. Participants stressed that responding to these realities requires investment in social protection, education, gender equality, sustainable livelihoods, and just economies.
Local authorities also shared experiences of welcoming newly arrived migrants and supporting their long-term inclusion. These discussions reinforced a simple but important lesson: communities become stronger when migrants are welcomed and given opportunities to participate, rather than treated primarily through the lens of fear or exclusion.
VIVAT at the IMRF
VIVAT International’s participation drew on years of advocacy at the United Nations and, equally importantly, on the daily experience of its members accompanying migrants, refugees, and displaced people around the world.
VIVAT representatives participating in the Forum included Marides Santos SSpS, Daniel LeBlanc OMI, Richard Quadros, SVD, VIVAT Intern; Gaia Mormina of the Scalabrinian Foundation in Rome; Sr. Leticia Gutiérrez, MSCS, from El Paso, Texas; and Alessia Villamar of the Scalabrinian Foundation in Honduras.
Marides also served on the Progress Declaration Analysis Task Force of the NGO Committee on Migration, contributing to civil society efforts to strengthen the human rights commitments reflected in the Forum’s outcome document.
Through global calls, RUN monthly meetings, collaboration with the NGO Committee on Migration, and engagement with partner organizations, VIVAT contributed to civil society advocacy before and during the IMRF. Its priorities included human-centered migration governance, protection of migrants in vulnerable situations, interfaith solidarity, and stronger accountability for migrants’ rights.
These advocacy efforts are grounded in the ministries of VIVAT members themselves. From refugee camps in Uganda and Tanzania to shelters in Mexico, migrant communities in India and Poland, and ministries along the US–Mexico border, VIVAT members accompany people through shelter, pastoral care, legal assistance, community support, and advocacy.
Their experiences offer a constant reminder that behind every migration target, policy, and indicator are people, families, hopes, and human lives.
Walking with the Messengers of Hope
On 5 May, VIVAT International joined Caritas Internationalis, Franciscans International, the Scalabrinian Foundation, Red CLAMOR, and Red Jesuita con Migrantes in organizing the event “Walking with the Messengers of Hope: Faith Communities and the Protection of Migrants in the Americas.”
The event explored the growing challenges facing migrants across the Americas amid increasingly restrictive migration policies. It also highlighted the vital contribution of faith communities to implementing the Global Compact for Migration.
Across the region, faith communities often accompany migrants at some of the most difficult moments of their journeys. They provide shelter and food, pastoral and psychological care, legal assistance, advocacy, and support for integration into local communities.
The discussion demonstrated that faith-based engagement is not limited to humanitarian assistance. Faith communities can also help address xenophobia, advocate for just migration policies, build bridges between migrants and host communities, and ensure that the voices and experiences of migrants reach decision-makers.
This commitment reflects VIVAT’s own mission: to connect the realities experienced by members at the grassroots with advocacy at the United Nations and other international forums.
The Power of Interfaith Solidarity
The wider IMRF also provided an opportunity to reflect on interfaith solidarity for migrant rights, protection, and justice.
Faith-inspired organizations frequently work on the front lines with migrants and refugees, providing holistic support that responds not only to material needs but also to psychological and spiritual well-being. Participants emphasized that closer cooperation among faith communities is increasingly important at a time of growing humanitarian needs and shrinking resources.
They called for stronger partnerships among faith-based organizations, humanitarian responses that respect migrants’ spiritual and religious lives, including those in detention, and joint advocacy to confront xenophobia and defend international human rights standards.
For VIVAT, these conversations affirmed the importance of collaboration. No congregation, organization, or faith community can respond alone to the complex realities facing people on the move.
Children and Youth: An Important Step Forward
Migrant children and young people had an increasingly visible role throughout the IMRF process.
One significant outcome highlighted by youth advocates and the NGO Committee on Migration was stronger language concerning the detention of children in migration contexts in paragraph 53 of the Progress Declaration.
The language does not by itself end the practice of child immigration detention. Nevertheless, it represents an important advocacy gain resulting from years of organizing, research, and participation by migrant youth, children’s rights organizations, and civil society partners.
Advocates emphasized that migrant children must be treated as rights holders and active participants, not simply as victims. Protecting them requires access to legal identity, child-sensitive procedures, alternatives to detention, and trauma-informed systems that prevent long-term and intergenerational harm.
A Progress Declaration in a Divided World
The Forum concluded with the adoption of the Progress Declaration, which reviews implementation of the Global Compact and sets political direction for the coming years.
Its adoption also revealed significant divisions among Member States. While many governments welcomed the Declaration as an important reaffirmation of international cooperation and human rights commitments, others expressed reservations or dissociated themselves from elements of the text, citing concerns related to sovereignty, security, irregular migration, and other political issues.
For many civil society organizations, the final outcome was therefore mixed.
The Declaration preserves important human rights commitments and includes concrete gains, particularly concerning children. At the same time, it reflects a fragmented political environment in which greater ambition and stronger implementation remain urgently needed.
The challenge now is to turn commitments made in New York into meaningful changes in people’s lives.
From New York to Our Communities
The 2026 International Migration Review Forum did not resolve the many challenges facing migrants around the world. But it reaffirmed an essential principle: migration governance can and must be rooted in human dignity, shared responsibility, solidarity, and the lived experiences of migrants themselves.
For VIVAT International, the IMRF is not an endpoint. It is another step in a much longer journey.
The work continues in parishes and religious communities, refugee camps and migrant shelters, detention centers and courtrooms. It continues through stronger cooperation among faith-based and civil society organizations. And it continues through advocacy that holds governments accountable for the commitments they make at the United Nations.
As VIVAT members return from New York to their communities and ministries, the invitation is clear: to continue walking with migrants and refugees, listening to their voices, defending their rights, and working together so that every person on the move is treated with the dignity that belongs to every member of the human family.
This post is also available in:
Spanish
