Beginning 2020, it is clear that the conditions that gave birth to the massive migration of people coming from Venezuela haven’t changed nor will change in the short run, which is why understanding the current temporal regulation mechanisms will not facilitate the development of public policy oriented to the welcoming and integration of population coming from Venezuela.
The number of people that emigrate from Venezuela will keep on increasing, while their chances of returning decrease, holding their receptor countries to new challenges.
The balance of the situation of the country in regards to human rights, institutionalism, economy, and humanitarian emergency for 2019 presented negative figures that contributed to reach almost 5 million forced migrants and refugees by the end of the year. Other than a tendency of deceleration of the hyperinflation, nothing indicates that this situation will change in 2020, which is why the projections of UNHCR-IOM that estimate that the number of Venezuelans outside of the country will surpass 6.5 million, appear to be supported. However, the challenge is not only the number of people, but their new profiles and the management of a situation that requires special attention from the receptor countries.
Change of profile of the Venezuelan migrants
In 2019 we warned about the change in profile of the people that escape from Venezuela. From a forced migration of predominantly single, young men with passports and a good level of education, we skipped to a now majority of women with children of their own or accompanied, without passport, and with a lower education level, which indicates more precariousness, when referring to people with less economic, educational, legal, and emotional wellness resources, that put those who escape in a situation of significant vulnerability. This new profile also suggests that we are in presence of an increasing tendency towards family reunification. Those who are emigrating are, in good measure and according to themselves, the mothers and partners of those who left a couple of years ago, in company of their children.
The fact that, for example, at the end of 2017 a 97.7% of Venezuelans coming into Peru entered with a passport and that number has decreased to a 23% in April of 2019, indicates that the flow hasn’t decreased, but the regular flow has. In other words, the people have not stopped to emigrate and will continue to do so, but each time with more risk as it is supposed when transiting irregularly.
Diversification of the routes
Another tendency that begins to present a significant phenomenon is the diversification of routes. Less transited and more dangerous routes are joining “traditional” routes like the ones that connect the Venezuelan state of Táchira with the the Colombian department of North Santander. We have been able to obtain testimonial information from terrain workers about the transit of Venezuelans through the Tapon del Darien: a new route for walking migrants that enter Colombia through Arauca towards the plains, as a way to evade the inclement route of the paramo; a higher influx towards Bolivia and from there to the south of the continent and the use of indigenous tracks of the Amazonian Brazil. The use of these routes might be motivated by the lack of frontier control, which contributes to an increase in human trafficking. Furthermore, the lack of control on these routes favors the presence of illegal armed groups that represent additional risks regarding rights, like forced recruitment and sexual violence, among others.
The unaccompanied minors and the legal barriers
Another phenomenon that begins to turn into a trend is that of unaccompanied minors. These used to be seen on the route of walking migrants from Cucuta to Bucaramanga and Bogota, likewise in Roraima, but it now begins to increase its presence in the Arauca route. Similarly, humanitarian organizations report a larger presence of unaccompanied teenagers in Ecuador and Peru.
On the other hand, the increase in legal barriers was imposed as a trend in 2019, with new requisites to enter Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, and the Dominican Republic; these barriers and the lack of adequacy of the regulatory mechanisms will have other implications in 2020. In the case of Colombia, the renovation of the Special Permanency Permit (PEP by its initials in Spanish) was paralyzed until the 24th of December, where a mechanism of renovation was announced, but it did not include the emission of new permits. While the PEP in Colombia and the Temporal Permanency Permit (PTP) of Peru were effective as a provisional response to an unexpected volume of Venezuelans, they now result insufficient to deal with a situation that no longer can be treated like temporary. The increase of barriers, added to the slow renovation of documentation and likewise to the adequation of documents and of regulatory mechanisms to the new trends, could generate bottlenecks and increases to the irregular condition, making it more difficult the registration of people in function of the redesign of public policy with the support of the international cooperation.
Public policies in the receptor states
Finally, the second half of 2019 was marked by social and political protests in some of the receptor states of Venezuelan population. The protests have put in manifestation a social debt that supposes challenges of attention for the governments of said countries towards their own population, which could lead to the response towards the population coming from Venezuela being perceived as a competition to the non-covered necessities of the citizens of those countries, even without being.
While the receptor states have undeniable obligations in terms of rights to the population coming from Venezuela, because of the simple fact of being under its jurisdiction, the development of strategies for the socioeconomic integration of said population cannot be seen as a competition to the coverage of demands of the local population. The necessities and rights of the former should be covered by local funds, like a type of international cooperation destinated specifically to these causes, as long as the receptor states overcome the focus on immigrations and replace it with the focus on international protection that, in the case of the population coming from Venezuela, must consider even -as ACNUR has recommended- the recognition of the prima facie of the condition of refugee, in the application of the Declaration of Cartagena , which has been incorporated to the national normative in the majority of the receptor countries.
To deal with the identifies trends, it is necessary to design strategies of international, national, and local incidence, oriented to adequate the public policies in regards to admission, regularization, and welcome to the changing profile of the people that escape Venezuela, including programs oriented towards the family reunification, as well as the development of early alert and of differentiated attention to those that face more risk in the old and new routes.
To conclude, we can affirm that, at the beginning 2020, it is clear that the conditions that gave birth to the massive migration of people coming from Venezuela haven’t changed nor will change in the short run, which is why understanding the current temporal regulation mechanisms will not facilitate the development of public policy oriented to the welcoming and integration of population coming from Venezuela. Furthermore, it is important to remind that the best control is not the imposition of barriers nor the repression, but the transparent entry as this facilitates the necessary registration to know who they are, where they are, and what requirements the people with need of international protection present.
Written by Ligia Bolívar. Dejusticia fellow international and associated investigator of CDH UCAB.
Translated by Kristine Villarroel
