This Tuesday, the Government of Javier Milei announced the creation of the National Migration Agency, in one of the most deep reforms in border control and migration policy in recent years.
In a press conference led by the Minister of National Security, Patricia Bullrich, the new agency was officially presented, which will replace the traditional National Directorate of Migration and will have its own police structure, in line with the successful model of the United States, with its Border Patrol.
Patricia Bullrich, ministra de Seguridad.
Bullrich explained that the transfer of Migration from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Security is due to an institutional redesign that is applied in countries with modern border control systems. “This move has to do with a design that is standard practice around the world, which is how migration control is developed and what security those who carry out migration control must have,” she stated.
“In Argentina, we had Migration under the Ministry of the Interior, and in border control we had the Gendarmerie, Coast Guard, and PSA... Now we're going to work through the National Migration Agency,” she added.
According to the minister, the transformation means that the former National Directorate must become a national agency capable of comprehensively addressing the country's migration issues, with new operational capabilities, greater professionalization, and a stricter approach to irregular migration flows.
The National Migration Agency will have its own migration police, a project that the libertarian administration had been developing since 2024 and that had already been anticipated in decree 366/2025, which defined the Gendarmerie, Coast Guard, Airport Security Police (PSA), and Federal Police as “auxiliary migration police.” The objective is, in the medium term, to concentrate border surveillance and control tasks in a single specialized force.
“Today we have three border police forces: the PSA, the Gendarmerie, and the Coast Guard,” Bullrich pointed out. The new Agency will be the institution that coordinates this consolidation, with specific training in crimes associated with the border such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal immigration, and terrorism.
Javier Milei y Patricia Bullrich.
In addition to the institutional announcement, Bullrich presented new data on crime and highlighted a sustained drop in the homicide rate. “Argentina's first major achievement is being the country with the lowest homicide rate in Latin America. 2025 will be even better than 2024,” she stated.
She recalled that last year the rate was 3.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, and she anticipated a further reduction during the current year: “There is still one month left, but based on the numbers we have today, we're 13.5% below last year.”
With this reform, Javier Milei's administration seeks to position Argentina as a country with stricter standards in migration and border matters, supported by international cooperation and models applied in Western powers.
