Is there a right to family reunification for refugees in Latin America?

Refugees often end up separated from their families when they cross international borders. While the right to family life and unity is enshrined in different international human rights documents, the right to family reunification is contested. This paper discusses the right to family reunification for refugees in Latin America by explaining family reunification as a human right in the region and the expanded definition of family based primarily on economic dependency. I conducted a thematic analysis of (a) regional documents on human rights and asylum in Latin America, (b) the Inter-American Court of Human Rights jurisprudence and (c) the national asylum legislation of Latin American countries. There has been a consolidation of the right to family reunification for refugees in Latin America as a region, as most countries have directly guaranteed a right to family reunification in their asylum legislation and indirectly by recognising the principle of family unity. Most countries in the region (except Colombia) tend to adopt an expanded definition of family in their asylum legislation. However, it is based on the idea of economic dependency, rather than emotional dependency, as defined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its Advisory Opinion 21/2014.