The Buenos Aires hotel once housed new arrivals for free. Now the country faces a controversial executive order that has drawn comparisons to Trump

Argentina once prided itself on a border policy so open that during the early 20th century it built an “immigrant’s hotel” in the port of Buenos Aires. Inaugurated in 1912, the massive building could lodge up to 3,000 new arrivals, who received free board, job training and help finding employment.

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At the time, more than half the city’s population was foreign-born; the economy was booming, and immigration – mostly from Europe – was associated with modernity and progress.

Much has changed since then. Nowadays, less than 5% of Argentina’s population is foreign-born and the old hotel, after surviving an attempt to turn it into a shopping mall, now houses an immigration museum.

And far from welcoming migrants, today’s government is instead preparing a special prison for them.



“We can’t allow criminals to keep picking Argentina as a place to commit offenses,” Argentina’s centre-right pesident Mauricio Macri said in a news conference last week.



Macri’s comments came after he signed a controversial and far-reaching executive order which allows for the deportation not only of convicted foreign criminals but also of foreign suspects who have not yet been convicted. The new prison will hold immigrants slated for deportation until they are expelled.



Coming just after Donald Trump’s own sweeping executive order on immigration, the move prompted many to draw comparisons between Macri and the new US president – another former real-estate tycoon and one time business rival of the Macri family.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the formal gardens at the Hotel de Inmigrantes. Photograph: Library of Congress

The clampdown on migration controls reflects growing hostility to migrants: present-day Argentinians are more like to associate newcomers with crime and drug-trafficking than with economic progress.

Activists say that such attitudes reflect a racial bias: most 21st-century newcomers arrive from Argentina’s poorer South American neighbours Bolivia, Paraguay and Perú – all of which have majority indigenous populations.

“Peruvian and Paraguayan citizens come here and end up killing each other for control of the drug trade,” said security minister Patricia Bullrich last week, provoking an angry protest from Bolivia, which dispatched a special commission to Buenos Aires to express its displeasure.



Arriving in the city on Monday, Bolivia’s senate president José Alberto Gonzáles warned that the executive order had unleashed “a wave of xenophobia”.

“Bolivians fear a wave of persecution because of the colour of their face,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The executive order has drawn comparison between President Macri and Donald Trump. Photograph: Andressa Anholete/AFP

Immigrants from Argentina’s neighbouring countries have felt stung by the association with crime.

“We come here seeking work, like any human being,” says Ramiro Martínez, president of the Association of the Bolivian Community of Mendoza.



“Crime and drug use are globalized from the upper classes to the lower classes,” says the 10-year resident in Argentina. “The only difference is that people who wear ties consume high-quality cocaine while kids in the shanty towns sniff glue.”

Human rights groups have also condemned the order. “Macri’s order violates the presumption of innocence because it permits the deportation of persons who have only been indicted,” says Mariela Belski, the director of Amnesty International Argentina.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A rows of beds in the women’s dormitory at the Hotel de Inmigrantes. Photograph: Library of Congress

“Foreigners under arrest for drug-related crimes constitute only 0.06% of the total number of foreigners [in Argentina], so there is no exceptional situation to justify imposing such an extreme measure, especially not without going through Congress first,” says Belski. “Such a major decision should be decreed by law, not by executive order.”

The human rights group is particularly worried about the special prison for foreigners that is being prepared in the old Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Barracas.

The new regulations oblige all judges to inform the government whenever a foreigner has been indicted on suspicion of having committed a crime. “The idea is to hold such cases in the new prison prior to deportation,” Belski said.

The new rules permit deportation following indictment even in the cases of immigrants with Argentinian-born children.

“There is also talk of creating a special court for immigrants, which is completely unacceptable,” says Belski. “We are extremely worried by the idea of a separate prison and court for foreigners.”

Belski feels there is a racist subtext to the new regulations and the recent statements from government officials. “You’ll notice they always refer to immigrants from indigenous-majority neighbours such as Paraguay, but they never mention immigrants from neighbours with predominantly European populations such as Uruguay or Chile.”