How is Latin America reacting to anticipated Venezuelan migration months after disputed elections?

By Latin America Reports | Created at 2024-11-19 14:57:05 | Updated at 2024-11-23 15:52:47 4 days ago

It has been nearly four months since President Nicolas Maduro won Venezuela’s presidential election, which was widely disputed for the government’s failure to provide precinct-level evidence of his victory.

Even before the election, consulting firm ORC Consultores projected that 18% of Venezuelans would be willing to migrate within six months after an election if Maduro retained power. That would add to the nearly 7.7 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees already living around the world – 6.5 million of which are in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to R4V Platform, an inter-agency coordination platform for refugees and migrants from Venezuela.

As repression of dissent in Venezuela persists following the election, some analysts are concerned about another surge in migration of Venezuelans to other Latin American countries.

August and September witnessed an increase in migration flow to neighboring countries like Colombia and Brazil, “with a significant increase in refugee applications in the context of post-electoral repression in Venezuela,” María Gabriela Trompetero, a researcher and lecturer on migration at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, told Latin America Reports.

Trompetero noted that 1,693 asylum applications were filed in Colombia between July 28 and September 19, and “in Brazil, the net balance of arrivals and departures of Venezuelans showed an increase of 28.6% in August, reaching 1,933 refugee applications, the highest number recorded between January and August of this year.”

At the Darien Gap, a perilous, 60-mile jungle border crossing between Colombia and Panama popular with migrants from around the world, including Venezuelans, the number of Venezuelans taking the route also increased in September. “Although the highest of the year have yet to be detected in the region, since July 28 a growing trend has been identified,” according to Trompetero.

According to the researcher, reaction to the uptick in migration from Latin American countries “has been varied.”

A consular crisis and increasing securitization

While some countries in the region haven’t experienced unusual increases in migration from Venezuela following the election, many have adopted measures of regularization and securitization – which tends to frame migration as a national security threat.

Platform R4V noted that while Peru and Chile did not observe “unusual population movements,” their governments have adopted securitization measures in anticipation of the possible arrival of more Venezuelan migrants, including “increasing border controls and military presence in the case of Chile,” Trompetero said.

In addition to increased securitization in some countries, Venezuelan migrants also face migratory challenges abroad thanks to political blowback from the elections.

Following the condemnation of the Venezuelan election by several regional governments, the Maduro regime severed diplomatic ties with Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

The decision led to the removal of diplomatic personnel from each country as well as the closure of several embassies and consulates around the region – exacerbating challenges for Venezuelans in these countries to process essential documents and consular services.

For example, in Panama, Venezuelan migrants will be allowed to use expired passports to carry out procedures and paperwork for six months. However, “the government has also announced it would begin deporting Venezuelan citizens to third countries,” stated Trompetero.

In September, Argentina implemented a Special Immigration Regularization Regime which “allows Venezuelans to regularize their status with expired documents, as well as other flexibilities,” Trompetero explained. The scheme applies to those who were in the country before September 23 and those who have entered regularly since, but it will only be available for 90 days.

As Venezuela becomes more isolated in the region, Venezuelan migrants face greater obstacles to regularization.

Close neighbors: Colombia

Colombia is the country with the largest number of Venezuelan migrants, with over 2.9 million people as of January 2024.

According to political risk firm Colombia Risk Analysis, August “saw the highest flow of Venezuelan citizens entering Colombia compared to the same month in 2023. This was also the highest number of Venezuelan migrants entering Colombia this year.”

However, during September, the number of Venezuelans entering Colombia dropped significantly, “suggesting that the remaining months of the year will see very similar numbers of entries and exits to the months prior to August,” the firm told Latin America Reports.

On August 27 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it is working on a new statute for permanent Venezuelan migrants, instead of extending the statute of temporal protection of 2021. This new “category” will be granted to migrants that are already within Colombian territory.

Among these new measures for migrant regularization, is “the Visitor Visa, which could benefit people who left Venezuela after July 28,” Trompetero said.

Yet, Trompetero also underlined how the refugee system in Colombia “continues to be slow and precarious: applicants are not allowed to work while waiting for a response, a process that can take three years or more.”

January 10 2025: Another crucial date

On January 10, 2025, the new presidential term is set to be inaugurated in Venezuela. While Maduro is set to begin his third consecutive term, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is convinced that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who through precinct-level voting data published the opposition and reviewed by outside election monitors is said to have won the election by a wide margin, will be sworn in as president.

Trompetero considers how the numbers of people leaving Venezuela “may continue to increase after January 10, as some people still hold hope for possible political change or to organize themselves to have more financial resources to begin the emigration process.”

Colombia Risk Analysis concurs, as “based on the figures [they] believe it is likely that once Nicolas Maduro is inaugurated in January 2025, the number of Venezuelan citizens entering Colombia will increase the months of February and March.”

This means that “Colombia will continue to be a transit country for Venezuelan migrants, which implies that routes such as the Darien and other emerging connections with Brazil and Peru will experience a greater flow of people in the coming year,” Colombia Risk Analysis stated.

Xenophobia and the value of migrants

Studies by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other research centers show that Venezuelan migration has a positive impact on the economies of host Latin American countries in the medium and long term.

Trompetero believes that the positive impact of Venezuelan migration could be “even greater if all forcibly displaced persons were in a regular situation and could access the formal labor market, working in the areas for which they are trained.”

“If countries continue to opt for closure and securitization policies, this potential cannot be fully realized,” Trompetero stated.

Furthermore, if some leaders in the region continue to engage in xenophobic discourse – for example statements from Peru’s President Dina Boluarte that attempt to link Venezuelan migrants to crime without an empirical base – Trompetero considers how “discrimination will continue to increase, exacerbating social tensions in host communities and pushing displaced people to seek new destinations, such as the United States, through dangerous routes such as the Darien jungle.”

Additionally, the migration researcher considers that the recent election of Donald Trump as president in the United States, “will increase pressure on Latin American countries to contain migrants and refugees” and slow their movement to the U.S.

In turn, “this will further complicate a scenario that demands multilateral responses with a focus on human rights, relaxation of requirements and migration regularization and integration policies,” Trompetero concluded.

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