The primary purpose of this paper is to analyse the discriminatory effects targeting mechanisms have on the social protection coverage of older-age international migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Does the form of immigration allows distinguishing different social rights to particular categories of immigrants? Is there any universal social pensions in the region? Qualitative Comparative Analysis track the level of exclusiveness or inclusiveness into social pensions in the existing 30 social pension programs from 28 LAC countries. Five targeting mechanisms are used as explanatory variables. The theoretical framework builds upon social protection literature and on the new mobility paradigm. After mapping the results, this paper shows the high level of stratification that is created thanks to the targeting mechanisms of social pensions. Access to cash transfers of social pensions in LAC is linked to the legal status of older-age individuals, and none of the programs is truly universal. Social protection programs cannot be catalogued as ‘universal’ if citizenship and residency status acts as stratified mechanisms targeting the targeted older-age individuals. Therefore, this paper argues that social policy scholarship needs a “postnational deterritorialization process” to adapt to liquid modernity.
