Colombia's open‐door policy: An innovative approach to displacement?

Abstract

Colombia is host to one of the largest forced migration flows in the world, having received at least 1.7 million Venezuelans, most since 2015, as political conflict in Venezuela increased, the economy imploded, and the state abdicated many of its basic functions. An additional half million Colombian nationals who were living in Venezuela moved back to Colombia over the same period. Overall, more than 5.4 million Venezuelans have abandoned their country, with more than 4.6 million of them staying in Latin America (Response for Venezuelans, 2020). Many of those leaving Venezuela could be classified as refugees according to the 1951 Convention onRefugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Many more -perhaps most or all -could be classified as refugees under the Cartagena Declaration, a regional non-binding declaration to which the

Migration data collection and management in a changing Latin American landscape

“…For example, Colombia and Peru, have received more than 1.8 million Venezuelan immigrants and refugees, thus implementing massive regularization campaigns to grant them temporary legal status (Seele, 2019). In a report by the Migration Policy Institute, Selee et al (2019) argue that countries such as Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Panamá, and Mexico developed creative solutions to face the Venezuelan migratory crisis. Some examples are new legal permits (i.e., Special Stay Permit in Colombia, Temporary Stay Permit in Perú, and the Democratic Responsibility Visa in Chile), regularization programs (i.e., Administrative Registry of Venezuelan Migrants in Colombia), and expanding the use of existing visas (i.e., UNASUR visa in Ecuador).…”

La Solidaridad o la Soledad? Cooperation and Tensions in the Regional State Response to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis

“…UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi welcomed the announcement by President Ivan Duque as a humanitarian example for the region (Grandi, 2021). Research has shown that Venezuelans who are recognized in Colombia have been able to find a degree of inclusion in Colombia and some level of access to services (Selee & Bolter, 2021). It may be possible that extending the residency period to 10 years could help support inclusion by reducing liminal factors that impede Venezuelans.…”

A Liberal Region in a World of Closed Borders? The Liberalization of Asylum Policies in Latin America, 1990–2020

“…1 Despite evidence that around 85 percent of refugees and people in need of international protection live in developing nations, most research on the legislative frameworks for the protection of refugees has focused on OECD countries (Bjerre et al 2015; Helbling et al 2017; Helbling and Kalkum 2018). Until the Venezuelan displacement crisis in 2015, Latin America was one of the least-researched regions in the field of refugee studies, likely because of its low refugee numbers, compared to other regions such as the Middle East or East Africa (Pugh 2018; International Crisis Group 2018; UNHCR 2018; Freier and Holloway 2019; Freier and Parent 2019; Selee et al 2019). However, in Latin America, scholars have claimed, a new liberal turn in asylum policies has taken place as part of an overall liberalization of migration policies in the region (Ceriani 2011; Acosta and Freier 2015; Cantor, Freier, and Gauci 2015; Ceriani and Freier 2015; Freier 2015; Fernandez-Rodriguez, Freier, and Hammoud-Gallego 2020).…”

“…This tradition has been concretely reinforced since 1984, when the informal process that kickstarted the development of a regional refugee protection framework in Latin America began (De Andrade 2014; Barichello 2016). Second, Latin America is currently experiencing its most significant displacement of people across the region since the Central American crisis of the 1980s (International Crisis Group 2018; Acosta, Blouin, and Freier 2019; Selee et al 2019; Berganza, Blouin, and Freier 2020; Chavez Gonzales and Estrada 2020; Selee and Bolter 2020). Due to the deteriorating economic and political situation in Venezuela, the UNHCR estimates that in recent years, 4.5 million people have left the country (UNHCR 2020), a significant number for a country that until recently had a long history of attracting migrants from other parts of Latin America (International Crisis Group 2018; Bahar and Dooley 2019).…”

“…This selection of countries is representative of asylum policies in Latin America for the following reasons: Argentina and Brazil are the countries that, according to Freier (2015) and Freier and Gauci (2020), have incorporated the highest number of best practices on asylum policies in the region, as identified by the UNHCR, while Peru has incorporated the lowest number of such best practices. 9 On the other hand, Ecuador and Venezuela have been included because they are the Latin American countries that have received the most asylum-seekers (before the beginning of the Venezuelan crisis) and people in need of international protection in the last two decades, due to the protracted civil war in neighboring Colombia (Gottwald 2004, 2016; UNHCR 2008; Pugh 2018; Acosta, Blouin, and Freier 2019; Selee et al 2019). Lastly, I have included Mexico, due to its undisputable importance as a diplomatic and political actor within the region.…”