Alexander Betts
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economic conditions, nine percent because o violence and insecurity,
and 45 percent because o a combination o both. Sixty-eight percent
also said that they had had to change their residence in their country
o origin in the previous year due to violence or insecurity. As Wash-
ington has stepped up enforcement and detention, many Central
American migrants have opted to surrender to the U.S. Border Patrol
in order to claim asylum rather than try to sneak across the border—
contributing to a growing backlog o claims at the U.S. border.AN UNEASY WELCOME
Central America is not the only source o the Western Hemisphere’s
migrants, and the United States is hardly their only destination. Un-
rest in Venezuela has also driven massive numbers o people from
their homes to seek refuge in many other places in the region. Under
Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule, the country has been beset
by violence and economic upheaval since late 2015. Venezuela now has
one o the highest murder rates in the world. Ninety percent o the
population lives below the poverty line. There was close to 1.7 million
percent hyperinÁation in 2018.
The exodus ramped up in 2017, when the full weight o the eco-
nomic crisis came to bear. Since then, up to four million Venezue-
lans—at least seven percent o the country’s population—have left.
This is an unprecedented development in the region, arguably sur-
passed only by the period between 1979 and 1992, when over 25 per-
cent o El Salvador’s population Áed a civil war.
Venezuela’s neighbors have responded in vastly dierent ways. Co-
lombia’s approach has been the most progressive. The country opened
its doors to roughly 1.5 million Venezuelans and has granted them the
right to work and to receive basic services. It has recognized Vene-
zuelan immigration as a development opportunity, receiving a $31.5
million grant from the World Bank earlier this year, alongside addi-
tional concessional Änance, to provide jobs and improved social ser-
vices to the migrants and the communities that host them. But
Colombia’s government refuses to call these Venezuelans refugees,
since doing so might exacerbate a bureaucratic backlog in the asylum
system and risk a political backlash in a country where anti-immigrant
rhetoric is growing in the border regions.
Other countries have been less welcoming. At Ärst, Peru opened its
borders, allowing Venezuelans to apply for short-term stays or for asy-