Abstract

La limitation de l’immigration des ressortissants des pays du Sud sous l’ère Trump : entre continuité stratégique de la politique extérieure américaine, reconfiguration géopolitique de la sécurité et crise normative des droits humains

KAKEZ KAYEB Dieudonné

Volume: 16 Issue: 1 2026

Abstract:

This article examines Donald J. Trump's restrictive migration policy towards countries in the Global South, questioning its significance: is it a radical break with American migration tradition or a strategic continuation of geopolitical logic, security imperatives and human rights concerns? Through an analytical and methodological approach combining geopolitics, international law and normative analysis, the study explores the historical context of American immigration, the genesis of restrictive measures (executive orders, travel bans, suspension of protection and visa programmes) and the justifications put forward by the Trump administration: national security, sovereignty and cultural preservation. The article highlights human rights violations, such as family separation, prolonged detention of migrants and arbitrary refusals of asylum, comparing them with international standards, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and refugee conventions. It also analyses the international repercussions: impacts on countries of emigration, reconfiguration of North-South migration flows, redefinition of migration trajectories and challenges for global migration governance, considering the role of international institutions such as the UN, IOM and UNHCR. Finally, the study offers a discursive and dialectical reading, contrasting normative rupture with strategic continuity, articulating a realistic and liberal perspective on American migration choices. It concludes that Trump's migration policy constitutes a hybridisation between normative withdrawal and strategic use of migration, revealing the structural tensions between national sovereignty, state power and international obligations, while emphasising that certain structural elements of migration control could persist beyond the Trump era as part of a logic of migration realpolitik.

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